Grimm Retreat
by Difficulty Tweak
Summary: Courier Six is transported to Remnant after a Think Tank experiment goes horribly wrong. Contains mod references, largely to the New Vegas Bounties series. Rewrite of the (now deleted because it was pretty terrible) original Grimm Retreat. AU, to an extent. Cancelled due to a personal lack of interest in RWBY any more.
1. The Report

**You're probably asking yourself "Tweak what the fuck why are you rewriting this and also why is the original still up?"**

 **In the event that you didn't see the last update for the original Grimm Retreat, I looked over it again and realized my writing was fucking garbage, and the direction the plot was going (read; nowhere) was dumb, and I don't think I could have saved the original version of Grimm Retreat where I was previously taking it, so I decided the only way to continue was to rewrite the entire thing from the ground up. The basic gist of what's being changed is this:**

 **-Courier 6 gets more of an introduction than in the original version**

 **-JAMI will get a proper introduction instead of the hamfisted shit I did in the original**

 **-Referential stuff will be dropped, I went way overboard on that stuff in the original**

 **-Lorebreaking stuff will be toned down HEAVILY, like Six having a Mad Max'd DeLorean, that was exceptionally fucking dumb and was only a thing because I really liked the DeLorean for some reason.**

 **-Generally, its going to be a lot less rushed and flow a lot better than the original did.**

 **As for why I'm leaving the original still up even though I'm rewriting it, I'm keeping it for archival reasons so people can see my reasons for rewriting it.**

 **We kosher?**

 **Cool.**

* * *

It was a calm, peaceful morning in New Vegas. The Strip was unusually quiet, and the only significant source of noise was Gomorrah, and the occasional gunshot coming from Freeside. The birds would be singing and chirping, too, if they were still alive.

Then, there was the unmistakable sound of a door being kicked off of its hinges, and in that moment, the peace was ruined.

"Where in the FUCK is Yes Man at?!" an obviously drunk Courier yelled out, while he stumbled out of his room, carrying a half empty bottle of an unholy vodka-whiskey-moonshine mix, completely unaware of the amount of strength he just conjured up to kick the door off of its hinges. The Courier was a caucasian male in his mid 20s, with black hair and a stubble, a large scar across his face, with an artificial right eye, and an eyepatch on his left eye, and, if you stripped the skin and muscle away, he had way more augmentations and cybernetics than should logically be possible for the human body to handle. He also wore a duster and cowboy hat, like practically everybody else in the Mojave. Six took another swig of his hell beverage, before he yelled again.

"I said, where the FUCK is that fucking robot at?!"

He stumbled through a second door that was open, and Six thankfully didn't need to be kick it down because he forgot how door handles worked.

Then, Six heard at least six guns being racked. Or was it five? Six couldn't really tell, since he was still smashed. He did, however, know what was coming next.

"Ah, hell." was all he said before being blasted by beanbag round after beanbag round, and knocked out cold.

"Right, he's down, move the drunken fool into the bathroom and waterboard him 'till he's sober. I'm going back to bed now." A very obviously groggy and tired Arcade said. Cass and Veronica went over to Six to pick him up and haul his sorry ass to the bathroom for waterboarding.

"Fuck, I know he's heavy and all, but I don't think I'll ever get used to how hard it is to move him, even with you helping me, V." Cass grunted out.

"Yeah, I know. Hauling him around unconscious is like carrying twenty pack Brahmin on your back on Highway 95. Let's just get this over and done with so I can go back to getting my beauty sleep." Veronica replied.

* * *

"Ah-no-gf-FUCK! Stop it, fuck, I'm sober now, Christ! Stop waterboarding me, holy shit!" Six yelled out as he struggled against his restraints.

"You sure? I think you're still a little drunk, I dunno, maybe we should waterboard you again." Veronica said sadistically.

"No no no no, I'm sober, don't fucking waterboard me again, fuck, please no." Six was practically begging at this point.

"Fine, my job here is done, then." Veronica said, and she dropped the bucket she was holding to waterboard Six with like it was dead weight, before heading out to get back to her beauty sleep. Cass had already finished unrestraining Six from the chair he was tied to, and was about to leave when Six called out.

"Hey, wait a sec Cass. I wanna ask you something." Six could barely focus on Cass, as his eye was still trying to dry itself off.

"What?" was all she said.

"Where's Yes Man at?"

"Same place as always, where do you think?", and with that, Cass left Six to his own devices.

"Fuck, great start to the day. Good job getting waterboarded, dumbass." Six said to himself, mentally kicking himself in the ass, before going to dry himself off and see Yes Man.

Six had barely stepped out of the elevator to the Penthouse floor when he already saw Yes Man's face on a Securitron.

"Hi there! I heard everything down there, I'd just like to remind you that every door you kick down costs 500 caps to repair! They aren't cheap!" The practically omnipresent, cheery robot said, with a hint of passive aggressiveness in his voice.

"Right, the money's in my trunk downstairs, whatever. Where's the weekly report at?" Six asked, completely apathetic to the whole situation that just transpired about an hour ago.

"Right over here! Follow me, please!" Yes Man said, before taking off towards the console where Mr. House's face used to be.

When Six saw the console, he couldn't help but think back to when he was still practically fresh-faced in Vegas, and he was helping Mr. House try to take over Hoover Dam. Oh, how times have changed.

* * *

 _"Your next assignment is to locate and destroy the remnants of the Brotherhood of Steel." Mr. House said, his voice unflinching._

 _"I'm sorry, what? I thought I heard you say you wanted me to destroy the Brotherhood of Steel." A slightly younger Courier asked the monitor._

 _"You heard correct. Every calculation I have run results in them being the biggest threat to New Vegas after the Battle at Hoover Dam, should they be left alone. They must be destroyed." House continued, completely apathetic to any emotions the Courier would be feeling._

 _"But that would mean betraying Veronica, then. I can't do that, there has to be another way to prevent the Brotherhood from being a threat." Six asked, pleading._

 _"Are you seriously putting your friendship with what basically amounts to a troglodyte with energy weapons and power armor, over the future of Humanity? There IS no other option, all paths lead to war with the Brotherhood." House said, with barely restrained anger towards Six being hesitant towards the assignment._

 _"I dunno, I'll have to think about this." Six said, unsure of himself._

 _"I'm sure you'll choose correctly, Courier." House said, with a significant amount of distrust in his voice._

* * *

Before he could reminisce any further, Six was interrupted by Yes Man handing him the weekly report.

"Here you go, sir! Your weekly report, as requested!" Yes Man said, ever cheerful.

"Right, thanks." was all the Courier said before starting to read over the report.

"...Westside and Freeside are having major shortages of water, illness rates shot up there too, somehow, and...wait, what the fuck?" Six stopped dead.

"...reported cult activity in Freeside? How the fuck did a cult get set up in Freeside?" Six questioned.

"I have absolutely no clue, but they are very, very mean! They shot some of those nice King guys in the name of their god, before retreating when my Securitrons arrived!" Yes Man said, his tone not changing to match his words.

"Christ, I bet they're fucking with the water in Freeside and Westside, that would explain why people are getting sick, and why there's a shortage." Six said, realizing the gravity of the situation. Freeside and Westside had mostly been cleaned up since the Battle of Hoover Dam, they were practically residential districts of New Vegas itself now, and most of the boarded up buildings have been refurbished and opened. They were barely recognizable from three years ago, and cult activity was very surprising considering the state of both of the two former shitholes. Six continued reading the report.

"'The Sink is requesting assistance with a major project?' The fuck does that even mean?" Six questioned again.

"I have no idea! They didn't tell me anything, just that they needed you for some big research project or something!" Yes Man responded.

"The Sink doing a 'big research project' usually means something is going to get fucked up. I'll check it out once I'm done fucking the cult up." Six casually responded, as if destroying cults was an everyday occurrence. He then handed the report in, as he was done with it.

"Well, I'm heading out, I'll be back in a few days." Six said, as he started towards the elevator to head to the armory.

"Goodbye!" Yes Man yelled cheerfully.

* * *

 **Well, that was a better first chapter than the original. Like I said, I'm taking this a lot slower than I did before, and generally putting more effort into it. Lemme know what you thought.**

 **'Till next time.**

 **-Tweak**


	2. The Armory

**Chapter 2, cool, cool. Just wanna get something out of the way, I'm not going to update this rewrite on a consistent basis, I'll work on chapters as I please and publish them when I'm happy enough, primarily so we don't end up with another equivalent of that dumb exposition wall in chapter 6 or 7 from the original story before I started the rewrite. That was fucking stupid.**

 **To ODSTFRymann, holy shit you practically already predicted what Six will use and I haven't even fully revealed his gear, only Six's tastes in guns reflect my own instead of just the vanilla guns.**

 **I still need reviews from people who have read the original Grimm Retreat, by the way, so I know what they think of the rewrite. On with the show, though,**

 **NOTE AS OF 6/15/2018: IN THE EVENT THAT THIS UPDATE GETS PUSHED TO PEOPLE FOLLOWING THE STORY, THIS ISN'T A NEW CHAPTER OR SIGNIFICANT REWRITE OF CHAPTER 2, I'M JUST CHANGING CHIEF HANLON'S SEQUOIA INTO SWEET REVENGE AND ALSO UPDATING THE CANON MODS LIST**

* * *

The elevator doors to the basement hadn't even opened, and Six's ears were already being assaulted by the sound of power tools, and someone doing maintenance in the basement.

When the doors opened, Six barely had to look around to find Raul working on one of the vehicles in the basement. Normally, there wouldn't be any vehicles in the basement, because there was no entrance or exit to the surface for vehicles to access, at least initially, but after the Battle of Hoover Dam three years ago, Yes Man and the Courier came into possession of a rather large fleet of vehicles, which were mostly functional, and there were even a few armored vehicles in the mix. Since the Dam was still being cleared at the time, and the NCR was…less than friendly, the Courier decided the safest place for the vehicles would be on the Strip, specifically, under the Lucky 38, so he gave the order to construct an underground parking garage under the Lucky 38 that would convert the basement into a dual parking garage and armory, specifically to store the wealth of equipment they had recovered.

"Hey, Raul, come out for a sec, I need to ask you something." Six said, rapping a few times on the hood of the vehicle to get Raul's attention.

"Yeah, sure thing boss, let me just leave this untightened engine block completely alone and without any support, that'll surely end fine." The ghoul replied sarcastically.

"Yeah, yeah, screw you too, Raul. Look, you were around before the Great War, what do you know about cults?" Six asked. Raul stopped for a moment.

"What do you mean, "what do I know about cults"? What do you mean by cult? Are we talking death cults, cults that just make weapons and stuff and follow a leader blindly, what?" Raul asked, slowing down on his work.

"Let's assume death cult. How did the police bring them down before the war?" Six asked, like it was some question every ghoul from before the war would know.

"From what I can remember, boss, most cults were brought down from the inside by moles. They would usually either feed intel directly to the cops, set the cults up to fail by screwing them, or sowing infighting. I know a couple of Mexican cults that got brought down this way once they got too uppity for the government." Raul said simply, trying to focus on his work.

"Alright, thanks. By the way, Raul, is my car fixed?" Six asked.

"Yea, boss, she's all ready to go, try not to ding her up too bad, alright? I nearly broke my arm trying to buff out those dents you put in her last time." Raul said, half sarcastic, half serious.  
"By the way, boss, why do you want to know about cults before the war? Most people just shoot them if they see them nowadays." Raul asked.

"Oh, a cult's popped up in Freeside. They shot some Kings, and I'm on my way to go talk to the King and try and bring them down. I THINK they're screwing with the water supply there, and in Westside, too." Six replied, nonchalantly, as if cults were a frequent sight in New Vegas.

Raul sighed. "Great, good job letting a cult get in under our noses, boss, and you did a very good job letting them poison the water in our residential areas." He said sarcastically, rolling his eyes, even though the Courier couldn't see him doing it.

Six just flipped him the bird, before heading to the armory. On his way there, Six started thinking back about him working with Mr. House, and what led him to betray House for an Independent Vegas.

* * *

THE LUCKY 38 PRESIDENTIAL SUITE  
LATE 2281

* * *

 _Six was incredibly frustrated. When Six was frustrated, he fiddled with his guns. He took them apart, cleaned them, put them back together, whatever, as long as he was doing something with his fingers and his guns. Right now, he was repeatedly working the bolt on his Kar98k. Six took a minute to look at his rifle._

 _She was old. Older than most guns in his possession, with the only ones he could think of that were as old as, or older, than his Kar98 were This Machine, all of his lever action shotguns and rifles, his BAR, and Sweet Revenge. Judging by the few remaining serial numbers and identification on her parts, she was made in 1939, making her over 342 years old. When Six first found her, he would have normally ignored her. She was in shit condition, worn and dried out stock, damaged scope, missing trigger guard, a bolt that stuck, the whole nine yards, practically unusable. Yet, something was different about her previous owner, a Viper Leader, and Six tried to remember what it was like fighting her._

 _When Six came across said owner just outside of Nipton, he pumped round after round of 5.56 full metal jackets into her, and she would just_ _ **not**_ _go down. He went through at least four magazines of FMJ trying to take down a single Viper leader, and when she finally did go down, her arms exploded in a shower of gore, sending her rifle flying towards Six, and it landed at his feet. Six took one look at the rifle, saw its state, and walked away, ignoring it, instead opting to go for the Viper leader's body, primarily for ammunition concerns, and also because he wanted to know what the leader was on. When he got to her body, he looked for signs of addiction. Six saw none, and his jaw dropped. In fact, now that he thought about it, all of the Vipers in her gang were fighting harder than what he was used to, and none of them were addicted. Something had to have changed. Six felt an odd presence, and turned to the beat up rifle, and felt as if it was calling out to him, like it wanted to be fixed and given a proper owner. Six quickly changed his tune, and grabbed the rifle, intending to restore it._

 _Coming back to the present, Six turned the rifle so her right side was facing him. Inscribed just below the receiver were the words "Jäger der Männer". Six barely knew German, but he did know that Jäger meant Hunter, and any fuckwit with two braincells and the ability to read could tell that Männer meant Man, so Six knew that it roughly meant "Hunter of Men". Right next to that inscription were several rows of tally marks, with different symbols above each row. Some had the old American flag before it was turned into the 13 Commonwealths, some had the Union Jack, and others had the Hammer & Sickle, and since Six knew vaguely of world history, he assumed that the original owner was a German Sniper who was deployed to the Western Front of the Second World War, before being transferred to the Eastern front, since the Soviet tallies came after the American and British tallies. He didn't know what happened to the original owner, but he assumed he was killed and his rifle was taken as a war trophy, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten to America. Six began fiddling with the bolt again, but just as he started, Veronica came in._

" _Ah, shit, hey V." Six waved to his companion._

" _Hey, Six, what's up? Cass said you were acting weird, so I wanted to check up on you." She told him._

 _Six sighed, and got up, slapping the bolt on his Kar98 shut. "Right, fuck, I've got something important to tell you. Not here, though." he said, eyeing the nearby camera. Six motioned for Veronica to follow him, and she did._

* * *

LUCKY 38 ARMORY AND GARAGE  
2284

* * *

Six strode past his big fuck-off vault door and into his gigantic armory. Lined up on the left side of the wall was every gun in his possession on either a rack or inside of a case. Some of the more notable ones he owned were the Walther WA2000, what was likely the only fully functional Pancor Jackhammer left in the world, an XM8, an **actual, proper AK-47** , and an H&K G11, and in a case directly below those weapons was Chief Hanlon's Ranger Sequoia. Those weren't his prized possessions, though, those were at the end of the hall. On the right wall were his rare armors, for example, every piece of power armor he could get his hands on, which means all of them. Significant examples include Arcade's father's power armor, an unmodified suit of Advanced Power Armor, a set of T-51b, and a suit of T-57c Air Force Power Armor he got as a gift from the Boomers. Six even had a set of T-60 somebody brought in from the East Coast. Six moved towards the end of the hall, unlocked a door that led into a special locked room that had a mannequin wearing his treasured Elite Riot Gear, a table with four display cases on it, a chair, a cabinet, and a workbench. Six re-locked the door and sat down, pulling out a key for the display cases. He opened all of them, and pulled out his favorite guns.

The first gun was his treasured Kar98k, in significantly better condition than when he found it three years ago. Six remembered how painful of a process it was restoring her, he had to make a lot of the parts himself since there wasn't exactly an abundance of American made reproductions of the Kar98k in Nevada. Six's second gun was the Survivalist's Rifle. When he stumbled across the body of Randall Clark, he was busy destroying White Leg camps near the Red Gate, and went for higher ground to find more of the camps. The rifle was in pretty good condition despite basically being left in a bag in the sun for a hundred and fifty seven years, and Clark even had the decency to leave behind fifteen 12.7 magazines. His third gun was his personalized Ithaca 37 that he'd had since he was a teenager. It was a gift from his father, and while he didn't really remember much of what his family was like, he remembered his father being a good man, although Six left home for a reason that he vaguely remembered being on bad terms. He briefly smiled at it, before setting it with the rest of his guns, and pulled out Sweet Revenge, a gift from Steven Randall, his late mentor. It was an old Remington, easily the oldest gun in his collection. Looking at the gun, he briefly remembered the events that transpired at Frosthill, and Six felt a phantom pain in his hands. He briefly looked at them, only to remember that his hands were cybernetic. Marko cut up his original hands so bad that he wouldn't have been able to continue living the way he did. The first thing Six did when he got his gear back was grab the Transportaponder and head to the Big MT's Autodoc for a new set of hands. He sat Sweet Revenge aside, got up, and went to the cabinet to get a brush, a cleaning rod, some bottles of liquid, a cotton swab, and several other things, before sitting back down at the table. Six picked his K98 up, and began to strip it of its parts for cleaning, whistling Big Iron the whole time.

"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day, whooooo..."

* * *

 **Boom, done.**

 **You may be asking yourself "Why is he focusing so much on the gun in the flashback?"**

 **You'll just have to wait and see, lad.**

 **Also, I've obviously finally decided my stance on mods; The Pip-Boy 2500, New Vegas Bounties 1-3, Russell, and the Equipment and Cybernetics portions of Project Nevada are canon to Grimm Retreat. I may make the Interesting NPCs mods canon as well, but haven't fully decided.**

 **Before anyone asks "how did he get all these rare guns lol", your answer is Fallout 1 and 2 where these guns were available.**

 **Also, my headcanon regarding firearm and vehicle development in Fallout, as it pertains to Grimm Retreat, is that firearm and vehicle development more or less continues as it does in real-life, at least with firearms, with vehicles getting a bit chunkier the further into the timeline it gets, starting around 2005 or so.**

 **Furthermore, if you want a rough idea of what the Armory looks like, google "gun closet" and look at the biggest one you can find, that is basically what the Armory looks like.**

 **Leave a review, by the way, so I know how I'm doing.**

' **Till next time.**

 **-Tweak**


	3. Into The Breach

**Hey h** **ey hey, chapter 3! Don't want to take up too much time, so I'll just address the reviews.**

 **To John Seed: I do plan on writing the Far Cry 5 story at some point, but I have absolutely zero clue as to how I would do a crossover. Far Cry 5 characters crossing over into RWBY would be a pointless endeavor since the Deputy has fuck all for a personality, and I don't really have an idea for as to how I would implement the RWBY characters into it. I'd like it to be a lot more serious than Grimm Retreat, since the content of Far Cry 5 is inherently edgier than that of RWBY, and I just don't think a crossover would work.**

 **To the random guest who didn't put a name: I don't get the reference, is it a reference to Shub-Niggurath or something?**

 **To Ediros: Aye, fair enough. In my canon, T-57c isn't actually better than T-51b despite the mod statistically listing it as better, because there's no reason for the air force to have a stronger version of T-51b that is heavier, when it should be weaker and lighter because the fucking air force would likely drop those shits out of planes. As for your comment about T-60, I'm actually in the same camp as you! I fucking hated that T-60 was somehow better than T-51b, and I installed a mod so that T-51b was the top of the pre-war armors again, because what the T-60 to me is effectively a suit of retrofitted T-45d that, while better than the original suit of T-45d, isn't as good as an actual suit of T-51b. There was no logical reason for the pre-war US to go from the bulky and clunky looking T-45d suits, to the T-51b, only to go right back to a slightly different looking T-45d that is somehow stronger than T-51b. In fact, here's a power scale for the power armor in my canon, in order of best to worst:**

 **Advanced Power Armor Variants T-51b T-60 T-57c T-45d Salvaged Power Armor**

 **To ptl: I'm not saying anything, but I focused so much on the K98k in the last chapter for a very specific reason, you'll just have to wait. No snarky teenage girls to be found here, though. I have something objectively cooler in mind for the K98. As for your comment on the Pip-Boy, I've toyed with the idea in both this version and the original Grimm Retreat of having the Pip-Boy do that, since when I first started writing Grimm Retreat I had just read some of another RWBY/Fallout fic where that was exactly what was done, where the Pip-Boy would digitize stuff and everyone was confused as to how that was possible, until Blake realized it was the property of matter, where it cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. I forget the name, but I know that specific fic named its Courier as Yuri Lowenthal, after the male voice actor for the Courier. I'm assuming that's where you got the idea from? Either way, I'm not having the Pip-Boy do that, Six has to carry his shit like a normal human being.**

 **Also, I partially rewrote Chapter 2. I basically just added the Pip-Boy 2500 to the mods list and changed the positions of Sweet Revenge and Hanlon's Sequoia, so Sweet Revenge is what Six's preferred sidearm is, not the Sequoia. Why? Because I think the Sequoia looks like shit. Not the engravings or anything, the actual gun. That's fucking ugly as shit and is the reason why I never use the Hunting Revolver, ever. Sweet Revenge looks infinitely superior.**

 **Also, you guys get a long chapter today. On with the show, though.**

* * *

Six let out a sigh of relief, as he was finally done cleaning his guns. It took him a bit longer than it should have, as somehow, despite being in an underground bunker, mud somehow got into the chamber of the Survivalist's Rifle and solidified, which was a pain to clean out. Six got up, and moved towards his suit of Elite Riot Gear. He was going to need a disguise, otherwise he would be instantly recognized, plus, the armor commanded attention and authority, and since the only suits of that specific armor came from the Divide, the Cult may want a bonafide badass with that armor in their ranks, or someone who was rich enough to buy the armor. Either worked, honestly, as long as Six got into the cult.

Six began to take his vest off, and thought back to the day he killed House.

* * *

LATE 2281

LUCKY 38 CONTROL ROOM

* * *

" _Why have you... done this?... centuries of preparation... so much good, undone..." House wheezed out._

" _Don't play coy with me, House, you know exactly why I'm doing this. I don't know how you old-world types work, but I understand a little thing called loyalty. I built a friendship and mutual trust with Veronica, one that we bled for each other over, she was loyal to me, I was loyal to her, understand? Now, how do you think I felt when my "employer" told me to betray and kill her, destroy her entire way of life, and genocide the only family she's ever known, with no questions asked? An employer, who, keep in mind, I had only seen through a computer monitor and the screens of his robots, an employer who I never actually built the same relationship with, that I did with Veronica." Six said, pacing back and forth, rubbing Lucky._

 _House hacked and coughed, before wheezing out again. "Fool! Are you… really throwing away… humanity's future… over a friendship!?"_

 _Six stopped dead, before turning to face House. "You keep talking about "humanity's future" this and "humanity's future" that, but if I remember correctly, you megalomaniacal business mogul type fucks were one of the causes for the war that fucked everything up for everyone. You're a relic of the Old World, and not even a good one. You're like a nymphomaniac brain tumor, ready to fuck up someone else's life, because you didn't climax hard enough the last time you did 200 years ago." Lucky was now level with House's face._

 _House opened his mouth to start talking again, but before any words could come out of his mouth, a shot rang out, and House fell limp in his seat._

" _You're a brain tumor, and I'm the brain surgeon, motherfucker." Six said, holding a still smoking Lucky._

 _Russell sighed in disappointment. "Six, that was the worst fucking one liner I have ever heard in my entire god-damned life. Please, for the love of fuck, never ever do that again."_

 _Veronica nodded in agreement. "That was pretty bad, I'm not gonna lie. I'll give it an A for effort, and a C for execution. Work on your delivery next time."_

 _Six flipped them both off. "Fuck you guys. Let's head to the Tops, I need to take care of so mething, 'cause Benny left us a little gift we can use."_

* * *

LUCKY 38 ARMORY

2284

* * *

Six put on his helmet, and there was an audible _squeeee sound,_ the sound of the armor sealing itself from outside agents. That wasn't a stock part on the armor, but rather something Six added himself with some help from Arcade.

Six had been knocked out and kidnapped with several varieties of gas grenades too many times during his bounty hunts, so he adapted by giving every form of knockout gas the finger. The suit already had a gas mask built into the helmet, so all he really needed was an environment seal. The thing that pushed the Courier over the edge and made him spring for the seal finally, was Brookshire fucking him twice, once with a flashbang, and then with the gas grenade. He also had Arcade and Veronica help install a way for the visor in the helmet to block out flashes that were too bright, again, thanks to Brookshire, so flashbangs could go take Driver Nephi's advice as well. All in all, these were very nice changes, since it meant that Six wouldn't be able to get buttfucked by any mongoloid with a flashbang or gas grenade anymore, or both.

"Helmet, on." Six stated simply.

No response.

"Helmet, on." He repeated.

Still nothing.

"Fuck it." Was all he muttered before he punched the helmet, and the internal display lit up like a Christmas tree. Whatever Christmas was, anyways. All Six knew about it was that people put up some funky looking trees with lights on them and gave each other gifts, usually guns.

Six sighed in relief. "There we go, fuck's sake. Looks like I won't need to have Arcade look at it just yet."

He pulled out his Pip-Boy 2500, which was kind of a hybrid between the Pip-Boy 2000, and the 3000 Mark IV variants, in the sense that it was basically a miniaturized 2000 with the Mark IV's plug. Six plugged it into the suit to run a system diagnostic. Six's suit of Elite Riot Gear obviously wasn't what it was when he pulled it out of the Divide, no, Six had made many custom modifications to it. Aside from the visor being flashbang proofed and the suit being sealed to unwanted chemicals, Six additionally had the Stealth Suit Mark 2 he got from the Big MT taken apart and combined with the Elite Riot Gear, into what was effectively a new suit.

Basically, the Stealth Suit, or at least the skinsuit part of it, served as a basic framework for the electronics suite inside of the suit, and was made to be able to interface with the helmet easily, and to provide a HUD that would display important readouts and whatnot. The environment seal went on top of the skinsuit, and then layered on top of that was the original Elite Riot Gear parts, like the armor, shoulderpads, and duster. There was even a cloaking device attached to the armor that was somehow salvaged from a suit of Chinese Stealth Armor and restored to working condition. Unfortunately, the problem with using the Stealth Suit Mark II as the base for the electronics suite was that Six also had the Suit AI, since it was an integral part of the Stealth Suit that couldn't be removed.

" _Hello, Nax!"_ the cheery, synthesized voice said to Six.

Six groaned rather loudly. "Allie, come on, how many times do I have to tell you? I'm not Nax anymore. That was a name I picked because I felt like I needed one. It's just an alias to me."

Allie started again, faking hurt. _"But Naaax! You're so similar! Why would I call you anything else?"_

Six responded with a sigh. "Look, I understand that Nax Strag is a bounty hunter in a sci-fi universe filled with aliens and freakish abominations, and I'm a bounty hunter in a post-nuclear hellhole filled with what may as well be aliens and freakish abominations. The resemblance is un-fucking-canny, _I get it, really, I do._ That doesn't mean you get to call me Nax, I only called myself that because I needed an alias, something to go by other than Courier Six so I wouldn't draw attention when I didn't want or need it, so please, for the love of fuck, _stop._ "

A rather young looking pale girl in her mid 20s, with a red beret and red scarf, a blue and white dress, with long white hair, blue eyes, wearing a pear of Oakley tactical gloves, and wielding some sort of Russian carbine, had now appeared on Six's visor, sitting down, and was pouting.

The figure got up, before yawning and giving in to Six's demands. _"Fine, fine, I won't call you Nax anymore, you're no fun."_ She yawned again, and then clapped her hands together, as if she was expecting a sound to be made. _"So, what's the occasion? You haven't taken me out in a few months. Are we going on a date?"_ She teased.

"Depends, do you consider tearing apart a cult a date?" Six asked, grabbing his duffel bag and heading outside of his special room.

Allie's face lit up in pure excitement. _"Ooh, absolutely! I haven't had a chance to see a cult yet, let alone tear one down from the inside! I wonder how different they are now from what my internal user guide says about them?"_

Six was putting 12.7 magazines, .44 speed loaders, 8mm Mauser stripper clips, boxes of 12 gauge shells, and medical supplies into his duffel bag when he took a second to process what Allie just said. "You have an internal user guide? Since when?"

" _Since always, you oaf! I just never mentioned it because it required a helmet to show up on the HUD, and I didn't have one initially, and by the time I did get a helmet, you didn't really need the guide anymore."_ She replied, as if Six was expected to know this information. _"Here, I'll show you."_ She said, before pulling up the user guide onto the HUD.

"Huh, well fuck me, I thought you were screwing with me. I'll look through it later." Six said, and Allie pulled the guide from the visor. Six tossed several frag grenades into the duffel bag, and then zipped it up, before slinging it over his shoulder. He almost forgot the Transportalponder, and grabbed it, putting it inside of his duster, which has several holsters inside of it.

"I've got my shit, let's get the fuck out of here." Six said, before moving back into the garage.

* * *

When Six got into the garage, he immediately noticed the lack of power tools being used, which meant that Raul was done doing whatever it was that he was doing. Six took a quick stroll around his huge fleet of vehicles, until he found it, the Shitbox Supreme.

Well, technically it wasn't a shitbox, it was a Toyota from the 1980s, likely imported from Japan, as evidenced by the position of the driver's seat. Six didn't know what kind of Toyota it was exactly, but he did find a vintage car magazine from the 1980s with a picture of what it would have looked like back in the day, so he did know it was from the 80s at least. On the left side of the trunk there was a faded **APEX** , and above where the license plate should be, was a much less faded **TRUENO**. Six bought her off of some guy in Chinatown, out in San Francisco, but when Six bought her, she was basically just a frame with all of the body, the doors, and most of the seats, and absolutely no engine, transmission, or anything. It took Six a good two years of work to even scrounge together the money to get replacement parts and put her in working order. Bulletproof tires and glass had to be purchased, as well as a new tachometer, a replacement engine, battery, and transmission from a Highwayman, additional seats and replacement seats, plus the electrical wiring, basically everything needed to be replaced, bought, or fixed, but the end result was worth it. Six pulled the trunk open to check his fuel supplies.

He mumbled softly. "20 full packs of microfusion cells, looks like I won't need to resupply any time soon, toolkit, check, spare tire, check, ammo for the '60, check…"

Oh yeah, Six also mounted an M60 to the passenger door, purely to prove a point to Arcade that if it was stupid enough, and cool enough, he would do it.

Allie broke the near total silence. _"What are you doing?"_

"Huh? Oh, right, I'm uhh, checking the supplies in the trunk. Don't want the car to be out of fuel, or to blow a tire or anything." Six stumbled out. He finished checking the gear and shut the trunk, before hopping in the driver's seat, and turning the key, and driving out of the garage.

* * *

The first thing that Six noticed when he left the garage was the storm clouds, and how dark it was. Six wasn't a stranger to rain, after all, it rained on him several times both in Zion Canyon, and during his trek to kill Marko, but in his nearly four years in the Mojave, it had **never** rained, let alone stormed.

Six pulled his Pip-Boy out of the duster, checked the clock.

11:37 AM.

It was nearly noon, but it looked like sundown. Something was up, and Six had a gut feeling it had something to do with Big MT. He gently applied pressure to the accelerator, and drove through the Strip gate to Freeside, on his way to see the King.

* * *

 **FREESIDE**

* * *

Freeside had changed significantly since the Battle of Hoover Dam. When news of the battle breaking out reached Freeside, the place went tits up. Most of the anarchists, bandits, and the troublemakers made a break for the Strip, and all were immediately gunned down by the Securitron Mark IIs with absolutely no mercy. The others started attacking everyone and everything in sight, but were easily killed by the patrolling Kings. At the end of the day, the damage and loss of life was quite minimal, everything was over and done with in around an hour, plus, there was the net benefit of the thugs being killed off, which meant Freeside was effectively just a slum without the thugs and hoodlums everywhere. Around a month after the battle, the Courier started pouring excess caps made from the Strip's casinos into developing Freeside by clearing rubble, building homes, repairing the roads and pavement, et cetera. Around a year later, Freeside wasn't known as Vegas' steaming pile of shit, vomit, violence, and disease, where gamblers would be booted to if they lost enough, but rather as one of the few truly safe places in the Mojave. The Kings were better armed and armored than they were before, thanks to Mick partnering with the Gun Runners to provide additional gear to the Kings, paid for by the Courier, naturally, and the Kings acted in a local police capacity. Securitrons were a nonessential part of Freeside law enforcement, and were only a necessity in cases like this, where a King is killed, and heavier guns were needed. By the time Six had stopped thinking of how Freeside had changed so much over the years, he was already outside the School of Impersonation.

Six had barely stepped out of the Shitbox Supreme when his ears were assaulted by what sounded like an incredibly deep bass boost of what may as well have been some unknown creature, and the feeling that the ground itself was shaking. Instinctively, he held on to the roof of the Shitbox, and braced himself until it was over.

When the bass boosted noise was done, and the ground was done shaking, Six let go, and caught his breath, before speaking. "Allie, what the fuck was that?"

Allie appeared on Six's visor again. _"I wish I knew. The ground was shaking, but it wasn't an earthquake. I detected a significant surge of electromagnetic activity far to the northeast of here, shortly before the noise started, but I have no way of knowing if they're related."_ Allie pulled up an overhead view from a satellite of an area northeast of Vegas. _"This is the area, specifically."_ The overhead view was of a big crater, with multiple large buildings inside of it.

 _Big Mountain._

"Oh, fuck. We need to move, before they fuck something up big-time." Six said, before getting up and making a mad dash for the door to the School of Impersonation.

* * *

"King! King, where the fuck are you!?" Six shouted, running madly through the halls of the School.

" _I'm detecting a large heat signature in the seating area. Did you look there?"_ Allie asked.

"Where do you think I'm headed?!" Six shouted back.

Six practically kicked the door to the seating area off of its hinges, or at least one of them, and frantically looked around for the King, until he spotted him, and rushed over to his table.

"King! Shit, look, I'd love to chat, but something important has come up. I'm here about the cult. When your guy got shot, did you have any of your men tail the cultist?" Six asked, obviously in a hurry.

"Yes, I did, but what in the blazes is going on with you? I've never seen one man in such a rush in my entire life." The King responded.

"I'd love to explain, really, I would, and I will once I take care of something incredibly important. Where are the cult held up?" Six asked again.

"They're held up at that place those NCR folks were handing out food at back in '81, out by the old train station. They've renovated the place a considerable amount, added a basement I believe." The King said, obviously trying to keep up with the Courier's frantic attitude.

"Great, thanks, you're a godsend. I'll be back in a bit to explain everything." Six said, before rushing outside and back into his car.

* * *

OUTSIDE THE FREESIDE TRAIN STATION

* * *

Six was frantically looking for the old building where the NCR was giving handouts, the landscape had changed quite a bit from when he was last looking for this building in '81, making the job a bit tougher, but he eventually found it, and there was a door guard.

"Hold, stranger. What business do you have here?" The man asked.

Six took a moment to compose himself, before responding. "I'd like to join the congregation, if at all possible."

The man took a moment, before responding again. "What do you have to offer us, and why do you seek us out?"

"I'm incredibly rich, so I can satisfy the congregation's material needs easily. I come here seeking a belief. I've always felt hollow in regards to my faith, I've always been searching for a purpose, something to believe in, and I want to find out if this is my purpose in life, to serve the congregation." Six responded, trying to appease the door guard.

The guard whispered something into his radio, before asking another question. "Name and occupation?"

"Nax Strag, Bounty Hunter."

The man looked hesitant, but whispered something into the radio again. "You're clear. Allow me to get the door for you. The Flock is gathered right now, they're in the room directly below the stairs. Please, take a seat." He said, opening the door.

"Thank you." Was all Six said before proceeding.

When the door shut behind him, Six could clearly hear the cult leader speaking.

"…And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals…"

Six was at the base of the steps now.

"…and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see…"

Six opened the door.

"And I saw, and behold, a white horse…" All eyes were on Six.

" _Oh, fuck._ " Six said to himself mentally.

"You there, bounty hunter. Step forward."

Six stepped forward.

Now that Six could get a close look at the cult leader, he realized he was one ugly motherfucker. Guy had a fuck-ugly man bun, a shit beard, stupid tinted aviators, and was shirtless, and he had all these tattoos on his body, plus several marks that listed the deadly sins, most notably, Lust.

"Behold, followers, the White Horse has come to take me from you, to prevent the spread of our Gospel. He thinks of himself as the Savior, but he is not, he is the Deceiver." The leader said, and the crowd started getting riled up.

" _Six, EM readings are spiking again, might want to hurry this up."_ Allie said to him.

"I will surrender willingly to you, Bounty Hunter, but know that God will not let you take me. Flock, leave us." The man signaled for the crowd to leave, and they did, except three people, two men and a lady. The lady was in one of those pre-war spring outfits, one of the men was in dirty NCR fatigues, and the other was in a nice looking suit.

"Well, Nax Strag? Or, rather, Courier 6?" the leader said, holding out his hands, expecting him to be cuffed.

Six started to giggle, and then laugh.

"What's so funny, Courier 6?" The leader asked, trying his hardest to be intimidating.

"I dunno, the fact that you think you're intimidating as shit. 'Oh no, big scary cult man thinks he's hot shit and can intimidate the Courier', yeah, newsflash, you aren't DICK to me. Tell me, have you heard of The Man in Black, better known as Marko?" Six asked, wiping fake tears from his helmet.

" _Six, we really don't have time for this, please wrap this up."_

"Everyone has heard of Marko. What are you getting at?" The leader responded.

Six continued giggling. "I killed Marko and his bitch-ass brother three years ago, in their own fucking towns. You and your stupid little fucking cult are NOTHING compared to Marko and his gang. While I normally wouldn't give a shit about any cult activity in my city, your cult had to kill a Kings member, which means the King gets involved, and since the King is involved, and your cult is involved, I get involved by the chain of command, and by priority. Freeside is my turf, fucko, and you fucked with the bull, so you're getting the horns."

The leader dropped his hands in shock. He'd heard that Marko died peacefully, but then again he heard he was also killed by a courier. He turned around, and motioned for the woman to begin something.

The woman pulled out a remote, and pressed a button, and gas immediately started flowing into the room.

Six laughed even harder. "Oh, look, you know you're beaten, so now you're trying to bitch out of dying by knocking me out. Newsflash, dipshit, I HAVE AN ENVIRONMENT SEAL, A BRAIN, AND A GAS MASK, I'M FUCKING IMMUNE TO YOUR BULLSHIT."

" _SIX!"_ Allie shouted.

Six sighed, and pulled out Sweet Revenge. "Look, I'd like to monologue longer, but I've got some important bullshit to stop. It was fun chatting, bye fuckwits." Six fired four consecutive shots, right into the domes of the woman and the three men.

Just as the leader hit the floor, the bass boosted sound started up again, along with the sound of…air raid sirens? There was the sound of thunder, too. Six immediately rushed outside to see what was going on.

Six expected the outside to be dark, like it was earlier, but the sky was now lit up with an orange-red glow coming from the northeast, right in the direction of the Big MT. Lightning bolts were visibly striking all over the place, indiscriminately, and there was a big wave of…something, coming right toward Vegas.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Six yelled out, trying to grab the Transportalponder.

"Fuck, this isn't good, ohhh fuck, come on come on!" Six yelled again.

He fumbled with the Transportalponder in its holster, and finally got it out of the holster, and switched it on.

"I'm gonna kick those brains so hard in the ass!" was all he yelled, before he pulled the trigger, right as a lightning bolt struck where he was standing, and the wave of energy came over his spot.

In that moment, Courier 6 was gone from reality.

* * *

 **HOLY  
FUCKING  
S H I T  
That took quite a while to write out, like, seriously. Like, a full day and half of a night long.**

 **So, to clear some things up: Allie doesn't exactly sound like the Stealth Suit voice, she sounds a bit more like a mix of Cortana and the Stealth Suit.**

 **If you need help visualizing what Allie's avatar looks like, google "9a-91 girls frontline", that's what I imagine the stealth suit AI would look like if it had some sort of avatar, in fact, I basically just ripped the design because I'm an unoriginal cunt. As for why it's some cute looking anime girl, Six is a dude, he likes cute girls, giving her an avatar of a cute girl is a natural thing he would do. If your issue is that this is lorebreaking, I point you towards the fact that this is a crossover between an edgy post-nuclear series of games, and a western anime. I'm bending the lore considerably already, yes, but I wanted Allie to have an avatar and 9A-91 was the first thing I thought of. As for how I'll write her into the story, I'm going to attempt to have a kind of Master Chief/Cortana or Lo Wang/Hoji dynamic, where one is doing all the legwork and the other feeds them information and such. Also, ptl, you get your sassy teenage girl, only she's not a teenager, she's an AI.**

 **For those who didn't pick up on it immediately, Nax Strag (as in the comic book) is a reference to Star Wars. Nax Strag was a randomly generated Mandalorian name I picked up and used for my New Vegas Bounties character, whom Grimm Retreat's Courier 6 is heavily based upon.**

 **Yes, the cult is very obviously the Seed family, what are you going to do about it?**

 **Six's car is an AE86, which is objectively less lorebreaking than the old DMC-12. You can fight me on this.**

 **Big MT's fuckup was basically a blowout from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. I'll leave it at that.**

 **'Till next time.**


	4. We're Not in Kansas Anymore

**How would you guys feel if I had a mod made that added a unique version of Eprdox's Kar98k based on Six's Kar98k? I have a friend who textures stuff, and he'd probably be willing to do it.**

 **Also, since Six is finally in Remnant, I'm going to make the chapters a fair bit longer, probably around 10k words each, maybe? Dunno, but I'll try.**

 **On to the reviews.**

 **To , I'm actually partial to both of the UMP twins, I just picked 9A-91 because she's probably the most spec ops of any of the T-Dolls in the game, at least in the EN release because I'm a cripple. She fits the stealth suit best purely because of her gun's real life usage. I could have gone with OTs-12 or OTs-14, but Tiss is just a 9x39 AKS-74u and I think the Groza is fucking ugly as sin, so 9A-91 is the best choice for her avatar. Also, speaking of the EN release being censored as fuck, I noticed 9A-91 uses the Chinese art for her chibi in the EN release, and not a censored one. Strange.**

 **To Lilbird04: The blowout was a much better surprise than just a fucking alien abduction like in the original story, right? I actually originally intended the blowout to be a Psi Storm from Call of Chernobyl, but then I went "ehhhh fuck it, blowouts are objectively cooler anyways and I can give a better plot explanation than I could with psi storms" because Psi Storms are just a big fuck off vortex in the sky.**

 **To ptl: It wasn't a psychic emission from the Zone, because there is no Zone. However, it was related to Big MT fucking up, that much I can tell you. The air raid sirens weren't Silent Hill type things, they were just parts that I took from the Blowouts in Call of Pripyat. Either way, the Blowout isn't going to go forgotten, and I intend on it being plot relevant and also the catalyst for a short story arc with Six later on. As for Six and Allie's capabilities and whatnot, Six does NOT have VATS, because VATS is, in my opinion, stupid as hell. HOWEVER, Since Six is effectively a cyborg (his body is significantly augmented with Project Nevada Cyberware, and implants from Big Mountain, think something like Adam Jensen levels of cybernetics and augmentations, but they aren't all visible like they are on Jensen), that means he has Implant GRX which is an on-demand Turbo, in the wake of VATS. He'll have an aura and semblance, yes, I intend on the aura being tied to his guns, but it'll obviously be locked until I have it unlocked. As for the semblance, I don't really have a set idea for it just yet. In regards to Allie's abilities though, she's basically like Cortana in Halo, or any of the AIs from Red vs Blue. She manages the actual suit itself, reroutes power to necessary systems, etc etc, all that good shit, and since Six is a effectively a cyborg at this point, Allie can basically hook into him when he's inside the suit, and monitor his vitals, which show up on the HUD. She can also manifest herself via a hologram if she wishes to. The hologram can either be full sized, or equivalent to the Darth Vader hologram in the AT-AT from The Empire Strikes Back. She can sort of physically interact with the world as a hologram, but she can't phase through shit or push it around, she can only get stopped by it because the emitter can't project through walls. She can hover, though, because she's a hologram, and the laws of gravity do not apply to her. That's basically it.**

 **To Fizz: Actually, color TV is a thing in Fallout now, according to Fallout 76, and if the trailer music is any indication, the cultural cutoff has probably been retconned into the 70s instead of the 50s, which is totally understandable, because there's only so much you can do with a retrofuturistic America culturally stuck in the 50s.**

 **To the Guest who didn't put a name: Sure, you could say the Plymouth Fury is more lore friendly or whatever, but Courier Six is what I call a pseudo self-insert. He's still Courier Six, obviously, and I'm not going to change him to be more like me to jerk off my own ego, but Six's tastes in guns, clothing, and even his car reflect my own. I like the Kar98k, so Six gets a Kar98k. I like slavshit, so he gets an AKM. (update: not anymore lol) I loved New Vegas Bounties, so Six gets Sweet Revenge. I like the Sprinter Trueno, so Six gets a Sprinter Trueno. The Elite Riot Gear and its variants are my favorite sets of armor in the game, so Six gets those to wear, et cetera et cetera. Also, if you read last chapter's A/N, you'll already know why he has an AE86 instead of a Corvega or Highwayman. Actually, it's technically not even an AE86, it's basically a Highwayman in the body of an AE86.**

 **Also, something I noticed, I write like someguy2000 does. Hell, I probably think like someguy does, if Cocker and Cutty are any indication. The difference is that I don't think I write as well as someguy does, and I'm not allegedly hung over or drunk in my descriptions. On with the story, enjoy!**

* * *

 **DATE UNKNOWN**

 **LOCATION UNKNOWN**

 **SOMETIME DURING THE NIGHT**

* * *

Six was lying on the ground, unconscious after pulling the trigger on the Transportalponder.

" _Six, come on, get up."_

No response.

Allie played a sound, like she was tapping on the visor of Six's helmet. _"Time to get up, Six."_

Still nothing.

Allie sighed, and began flipping through her audio databanks, until she found what she was looking for.

Six's helmet began playing a song. _"Theeeere was never a man, like my Johnny…"_

Six shot up like a rocket, Sweet Revenge drawn, ready to shoot the radio that had dared play that fucking song again.

"Where is it?" Six asked, scanning the environment.

Allie shut the song off, before responding to Six. _"Nowhere, you dolt. I needed you up, and that was the fastest way to get you up. Listen, we've got a problem, and I mean a big problem."_

Six holstered Sweet Revenge. "Lay it on me."

Allie sighed. _"That emission, or whatever it was, damaged my internal clock, and I can't ping any RobCo OR General Atomics satellites. Not even a Chinese spy satellite is responding, and I have the clearance codes for several of those. I'm not even picking up any radio signals. I have no idea what the date is, or where we are, and I don't even know if there is any sign of civilization. As far as I can tell, we're basically dead in the water."_

Six huffed. "I've been through worse. Remember, I was nearly killed twice, I literally had my brain, heart, and spine taken out of my body, I went through a hellish villa in Mexico for a heist for an old coot and survived with ALL of the gold, and even locked the bastard in the vault, and I walked through a freshly nuked Divide and lived. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine without any sort of intel, thanks. So, what DO you know?"

Allie appeared on Six's visor, and rolled her eyes at his bravado. _"Well, we're not in the Mojave anymore."_

Six blinked a few times, and then took a minute to properly look at his surroundings. He didn't notice it before, but he was in a forest, and it was incredibly lush, completely unlike anything Six had ever seen. Not even Vault 22 came close.

"Holy shit, look at all of the trees and plants! I've never seen anything like this before, not even on my way to Zion. I guess this place having actual plants does narrow the location down considerably. We're probably in Utah, maybe Oregon or Washington."

Six noticed something else about his surroundings; his car was missing.

He started to panic. "What the fuck? Where the fuck is my car at?!" He shouted. Allie just shrugged.

Six continued looking for a solid minute, and then gave up with a sigh. "Fuck it, I probably wouldn't be able to drive in this forest anyways. Looks like we're hoofing it."

Six picked a random direction, and started walking.

* * *

Six had found a decently sized hill to perch himself on and use as a vantage point to get a better idea of where the hell he was. When he got to the top, he noticed a very faint glow of lights coming from the side of a mountain to his east, similar to New Vegas. Six didn't remember there being any big cities with electricity in Utah and Oregon, so he was likely in Washington. Maybe the NCR finally got power flowing in Seattle?

"Looks like we've found civilization. I told you I'd been in worse scrapes." Six said, obviously cocky.

Allie sighed in exasperation. _"Fine, you win this time. Let's go and meet the loca-"_ Allie stopped herself short.

Six was confused. "What's wrong?"

Allie responded, tension in her voice. _"Multiple contacts, directly in front. I advise you get down and wait."_

"Shit, alright. How many?" Six said, already prone in the grass.

" _At least three. Switching to night vision now."_ Allie said, clearly focusing on trying to keep Six from revealing himself.

Six immediately saw what Allie was talking about. Directly in front of Six were three creatures that looked vaguely like Deathclaws, but something was off, and it rubbed Six the wrong way. He paid closer attention to the features of the unknown creatures, and he noticed that instead of horns, they had what looked like a skull mask on, and there were bones protruding from their limbs, and they had glowing red eyes. They also had _fur_ , which was something Deathclaws definitely don't have. Were these things an offshoot? A mutation? Some sort of sub-species? Whatever they were, Six didn't have time to think about it any deeper, as a loud roar echoed through the forest.

"Fuck, that sounds like a Yao Guai." Six sank deeper into the grass.

As if this day couldn't get any weirder, a giant Yao Guai lookalike had now come running through the treeline, straight for the "Deathclaws". It barreled right into one of the "Deathclaws", crushing it under its weight, and then picked up one of the two left standing, before biting the head clean off, and then tossing the body at the remaining "Deathclaw", stunning it. While said "Deathclaw" was stunned, the Yao Guai grabbed it, and then tore the body in half, and it started feasting on the carnage. While it was eating, Six noticed something about the Yao Guai – it had the same features the "Deathclaws" did. Bones protruding from the limbs, skull mask, red eyes, the whole lot. Eventually, it grabbed the bodies and moved on, presumably, back to its den.

Six got up, before letting out a very valid "What the fuck did I just witness?" Allie felt inclined to say the same, but held her tongue.

" _I thought Deathclaws were the alpha predator? What did a big Yao Guai have to roid itself up with to take down three of them?"_ was what she said, still in disbelief.

"Those weren't Deathclaws, and that wasn't a Yao Guai. We're definitely out of our element, Allie." Six said.

Six looked up at the sky to try and tell how long he had until dawn, and then he noticed it; the moon was shattered, and there were big chunks of debris trailing just behind it.

"What. The. Fuck." was what both Allie and Six said, staring in pure, utter disbelief.

"How did-?", _"What could have-?"_ , and"When did-?" was all they managed to sputter out.

They kept staring, running potential explanations through their head as to why the moon was shattered, but nothing came close as to a valid explanation for why it was like that. They just kept staring in pure silence, like they were in a trance.

Eventually, Six snapped out of it. "We're not going to find answers by staring at it. We need to get moving, or we'll be dead in about eight hours." He said as he started to move down the hill.

* * *

 **ROUGHLY AN HOUR LATER  
OUTSIDE OF AN ABANDONED TOWN**

* * *

Not far from the hill, Six had found a dirt road that lead vaguely in the direction of the city, which they followed for about an hour, until they came to the gates of what looked like an abandoned town.

Six looked at the welcome sign posted on the wall. Someone had spray-painted the words "DON'T ENTER, GRIMM INSIDE" over the sign that read "Welcome to Moonvale, Population 20", although someone scratched out the 2 so it just read as "Population 0"

Six felt uneasy. What was a Grimm, and how could they have forced the people of what looked like a highly defendable town to flee? Six intended to find out. He drew the Ithaca, and cautiously opened the gate, which had an audible _creeeeeek_. Six moved slowly through the opened gate. The first thing Six noticed about the town was how old and dilapidated the buildings were, probably haven't been maintained for ten years or so. The second thing he noticed was how eerily similar the layout of the town was to Goodsprings. If you had faced Goodsprings so that you were facing Doc Mitchell's house from the end of the road, Moonvale was practically identical, which didn't help Six feel less uneasy. The General Store and Saloon were directly to Six's right, the other gate was directly in front of him, and there were about four houses to the left, one of which was in ruins. Six being Six, he immediately went for the Saloon.

* * *

Six slowly stepped inside of the Saloon, and he noticed that it was very similar to the Goodsprings Saloon. Sure, tables were missing or knocked over, and there were holes in the walls, but the layout was the same.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" Six whispered. Allie said nothing.

Six crept around the corner to where the bar would be, and then he saw one of the "Deathclaws" right in the middle of the seating area, sleeping. Right on the bar next to it were several bottles of what looked like whiskey, exactly what Six was hoping to find.

"Score." He whispered to himself.

Six quietly crept up to the bottles of whiskey, careful so as to not make a sound to not wake the beast. He slowly grabbed them, storing each one in his duster, careful to not knock over any of the empty glasses scattered along the countertop.

When Six grabbed the last bottle and stored it, he turned to leave, and started walking. However, his duster must have caught onto something, because when he tried to walk away, one of the barstools fell over, and immediately woke the beast.

"Oh, fuck." was all Six said as he turned around, realizing his mistake.

* * *

The beast rose its head, sniffing the air. It smelled a human nearby _"Prey…"_ it thought to itself. The beast turned its head to the left, and saw the source of the smell. Yet, something was off about this human. It smelled of more of machine than of man. This confused the beast. This…human, exhibited a certain degree of pride, recklessness, and an aura of dangerousness. He wasn't afraid, nor was he flinching at the sight of the beast, rather, he was pointing his weapon directly at the beast's face. This Grimm was only ten cycles old, but it knew better than to engage the man, otherwise, it would surely die.

The Grimm got up, and moved away to the other room, and started sleeping again.

* * *

"That went better than expected." Six said, surprised he was still in one piece, even more surprised that he didn't have to put a twelve gauge directly in the skull of the beast.

Allie, on the other hand, was positively _pissed._ _"Why didn't you shoot it!? Now it knows we're here, and it's probably going to tell its friends!"_

Six responded. "Chill the fuck out, and listen for a second."

She did, and they heard the beast snoring.

"See? It's asleep, it won't be telling its friends, and when it wakes up, we'll be long gone." Six said.

Allie let out a sigh of defeat.

"We need to check the General Store, and then we'll be gone, I promise. No more fucking around in this place." Six said, moving for the door.

* * *

 **MOONVALE GENERAL STORE**

* * *

Six crept through the door, and took a minute to take in his surroundings. The general store was fairly small, about the size of Chet's store. On the shelves were the things you'd expect in a general store, old cleaning supplies, food, shit like that. On the front counter, however, was something Six had never seen before. Six got closer to get a better look, and what he saw was strange, at least to him. There were about six small vials of a strange powder, but the powders in each of the vials were of a different color. One vial had a green powder, one had a blue powder, the third had a red powder, the fourth had a brown powder, the fifth had a white powder, and the sixth had a yellow powder.

"What are these things?" Six asked, hoping Allie could provide an answer.

She let out a sigh. _"Six, we're out of our element as it is here. I don't know what those powders are, and I can't provide a valid answer until I can properly look at them with equipment, which we don't have. Just take them and let's get out of here."_ Allie obviously wanted out.

"Fine, fine, let me just take these vials and then take the shit out of the register." Six said, grabbing the vials and storing them in his duster, before moving to the register. When he opened it, he saw multiple plastic cards of different colors marked with an L symbol, and a number in the corner, likely denoting value.

"The fuck are these?" Six said, pulling one out.

" _Either local poker cards, or currency. Take your pick."_ Allie said, anxious that they might get caught.

"Whatever they are, they're probably worth something. Let's get out of here." Six said, slotting the cards into his duster's slot that was used for paper currency, before moving for the door to get out of Moonvale.

* * *

 **TWO HOURS LATER  
OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF THE CITY**

 **(A/N: I strongly advise you listen to the New Mombasa music from Halo 3 ODST to set the mood for this next bit, don't have to if you don't want to lol)**

* * *

Despite how far the city initially looked from the hill, the walk wasn't as long as Six had expected, taking three, maybe four hours max. However, they had now hit a roadblock, they were walled out of the city, and finding the entrance would take probably an hour of time, which was time Six didn't really want to have to waste.

" _Nice one, we're walled out of the city. How do you plan on getting inside now, genius?"_ Allie said, annoyed. Six said nothing, and instead pulled out his duffle bag and started fishing around inside of it.

" _What are you doing?"_ She asked.

Six pulled out a crowbar and a long piece of rope that he kept in there in case of emergencies, or if there was a need to climb over something he couldn't normally get over.

"Getting us over the wall, why?" He said, obviously being a smartass.

" _What if that doesn't hook to anything?"_ She said.

"It will." Six responded, confident in his abilities.

Allie sighed. _"If it doesn't properly hook, and you fall and break your back, I'm going to overdose you on morphine, and hope I die with you."_ She said.

Six responded, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "How sweet of you. It'd be a quicker death than what the NCR would probably give me, anyways."

Six had finished tying the rope around the crowbar, and started twirling it like a lasso, before tossing it over. There was the unmistakable sound of metal hitting metal.

"Told you it would work." Six said, smug. He zipped his duffel bag back up, and threw it over his shoulder, before beginning to climb.

* * *

When Six got to the top of the wall, he suddenly realized his mistake.

"Oh, right. Getting up is easier than getting down. How fucking silly of me." Six said. Allie just giggled, and it took Six a minute to realize what she was laughing at.

"Ha-fucking-ha, real mature of you." he said, annoyed at how immature Allie was. She just giggled even harder.

She had to stop herself from giggling to give Six a proper response. _"I'm a robot, remember? Well, I'm an AI, but same thing. Technically, I never mature, because I don't really have a lifespan."_

"Alright, quit fucking around, how are we going to get down, and how do we get down without breaking my fucking legs? I'm not jumping, cause that's at least a 20 foot drop." Six said, looking around for a way to safely get down. Directly to his right was a fire escape, close enough that he could probably jump to it and grab onto the rails, and to his left was another fire escape, but it was further away, so it would be a balancing act of trying not to fall. Six went for the closer fire escape.

Allie felt the need to remind Six about what she said. _"Remember, break your back and I'll overdose you."_

"I got that, thanks. Time for a leap of faith, then." Six said, preparing to jump across.

When Six did jump, he immediately activated Implant GRX to give himself more time to react, and he stretched his arms out to try and grab on to the rails. He almost missed, even with GRX active, but he grabbed on at the last second, which was also when GRX wore off, and Six immediately felt his body plow into the railing, which was when Six let out a painful wheeze, before slinging himself one level down so that he was on his feet.

Six took a minute to catch his breath, before calling out Allie. "Told you I'd make it."

Allie was annoyed, but was at least happy she was alive. _"You got lucky, that's all there was to it. If you didn't have me or this suit, you would be a cripple right now, that's a fact."_ was all she had to say.

"Probably, yeah." Six said, circling down the stairs of the fire escape. He took a second to look down at the city streets. "Looks like most of the shops and places are closed. We might get lucky and find a place that's open." he continued, before continuing to move down the stairs onto street level.

When Six got to the base of the fire escape, the drop was now a much more manageable 10 feet, and Six inched his body down, holding on to the fire escape, until his body was fully lowered, at which point he let go, and hit the ground with an audible _thud_.

"Let's get my shit and get out of here, don't want to attract too much attention." was all he said, and he started moving to where the crowbar landed, which was in a sewer grate.

* * *

Six was kind of just aimlessly exploring the city streets. The city was absolutely unlike anything he had seen before. Arroyo, Shady Sands, The Hub, New Vegas, and San Francisco were some of the most advanced places on the West Coast, but despite that, they absolutely paled in comparison to whatever this city was. There were cars parked on the streets, functional traffic systems, it just absolutely shat on all of them, even Vegas, which sort of hurt Six's pride.

" _These buildings look French."_ Allie remarked.

That made Six do a double take on the buildings. They absolutely _did_ look like they were French. Six had never personally seen French architecture, but he remembered seeing pictures of Paris in a book his dad bought from the Followers when he was younger, and the architectural styles were so similar it was uncanny. Six kept walking.

Most of the buildings were closed, unsurprisingly. There were a few that were open, but they were either probably too expensive for his blood, or not what he was looking for. Mostly, they were just coffee and donut shops. Some were gun stores, which was something Six would gravitate towards naturally, but he likely didn't have enough money to buy any guns. Other places were nightclubs and bars, which Six wasn't particularly interested in, since he already had his own alcohol. Speaking of…

Six pulled out one of the bottles of whiskey, opened it, and pulled up his helmet to take a swig. He took a second to let the taste sink in.

"Tastes vaguely of piss, slightly more so than whiskey normally does. Odd." Six said, as if he was some sort of connoisseur on what piss tasted like.

Allie was confused. _"That's it? No dramatic spitting it out, or vomiting?"_

"No." Six responded, pulling his helmet back down, and putting the whiskey away. He looked up, and saw he was in front of some store called "From Dust Till Dawn".

"Looks like a general store. Maybe they have a map of the area or something." Six said, before opening the door. The door had one of those jingles attached to it so that it made a sound whenever a customer came in. A few of the traders in the Hub had those, but not many. Behind the counter was an old man, probably in his late 60s or so, and in the actual counter were crystals of the same colors as the powder vials Six found in Moonvale. To his left and right were some jars and tubes of the same powder in the vials. Whatever the powder was, this place seemed to be selling it. Six walked up to the counter.

"Hey, I'm kinda new in town and got lost. Do you have a map or anything, ideally with a point of reference for me, so I can figure out where I'm going?" Six asked.

"Yes, yes, one moment." The old man said, reaching down under the counter, before pulling out a map of the city and setting it on the counter.

"You're right here, in the Commercial District of Vale." He said. "My shop is here." He continued, pointing to a northeastern corner of the district.

Allie cut in. _"I've got a picture of the map saved, Six."_

"Great, thank you so much for your help. I appreciate it." Six said, and the old man put the map back under the counter. When Six moved away to go find more information about where exactly he was, and to plan his next move with Allie, he heard the door open again. Six turned around, and saw a young girl, couldn't be any younger than 15, in what had to be the gaudiest dressup possible. She was wearing all black and red clothing, had one of the biggest god damned skirts Six had ever seen in his life, she had a red cloak, with a rose medallion or something that looked like one on her belt, and clipped to the belt were… .50 BMG bullets? They weren't casings, either, they still had the actual bullet in them.

"Hi! Do you have the new issue of Weapons Weekly?" She asked, holding out several plastic cards that looked like the ones Six had taken from the register in Moonvale.

"Sure do, Miss Rose, one second." The shopkeeper said, reaching under the counter, and pulling out a weapons magazine. She took it, handed him the cards, and went further back in the store.

Six felt tempted to ask what the fuck was wrong with her, but resisted the urge, and instead found a newspaper rack. Six randomly picked one, and started reading, while Allie pored over the map of Vale.

* * *

 **VACUO ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION BEGINS  
**  
The Kingdom of Vacuo is a lawless place, full of criminals, thieves, and outlaws. Yet, beneath its sands lie vast treasures, pieces of ancient history, just waiting to be discovered. The Schnee Dust Company has recognized this, and has authorized an expedition to the region. The SDC is now hiring mercenaries and Hunters to protect their excavations teams during their expedition into the industrial wastes of Vacuo.

The head of the expedition has gone on record stating the objective of the project as being to "find additional untapped Dust sources, and hopefully find clues as to why there is a lack of fossils and relics past 100,000 years."

The expedition has the full backing of the SDC CEO, Jacques Schnee, and is expected to last several years.

* * *

Six's reading was interrupted by a new person having entered the store. Six didn't look behind him.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Dust shop open this late?" the new voice asked.

Six heard the distinctive sound of what was likely an energy pistol being turned on.

"Please! Just take my lien and leave!" The shopkeeper yelled in fear.

"Shhh, calm down. We're not here for your money. Grab the Dust." the new voice said, and then Six heard multiple footsteps moving through the store. He heard the sound of pumps working, display cases being opened, whatever. Six would normally intervene, but he didn't want to start shit without knowing what was going on. For all he knew, this could be a protection racket, and Six would be in a whole other mess of shit, because fucking with the mob wasn't exactly the smartest move. Six then felt a gun being pressed to his helmet.

"Hands in the air, fucko." another voice said, likely one of the henchmen. He sounded sort of like the Omertas did when they spoke, but it was like he practiced half of the required work and then half-assed the rest of it.

Six turned around, and stared directly at the man with the gun pointed at him. He couldn't have been more than 5'7", he was practically a teenager when compared to Six. He had the stupidest looking style, it was a pure black suit with a red tie, a black fedora, and some red shaded sunglasses, like an Omerta, but significantly less threatening.

"Are you stupid or some shit? I said to put your hands in the air. Do it, or I'll cap your ass." He said, trying to be intimidating. His body language, however, told Six that the guy was scared shitless.

"Fine, fine. I surrender." Six said, rolling his eyes and putting his hands up in mock surrender. He noticed the first voice that entered the store after the girl looked like a really shitty Bond villain, and he was leaning over the counter. He took a second to look at Six, let out a puff of cigarette smoke, and refocused his attention on the shopkeeper. He didn't get to maintain that for long when one of the henchmen came flying from the back of the store at Mach 2, leaving him embedded in the wall. One of the other henchmen came running up to the Bond villain, who directed him to where the guy came flying from. The second henchman went to where the Bond villain directed him, and was promptly kicked right out the fucking window, with the girl right behind him. The Bond villain and the three remaining henchmen in the store went to the window to see if their friend was okay, even the guy holding Six up.

"Big mistake, pal." Six thought to himself, drawing Sweet Revenge.

Six heard the sound of…machinery? Whatever it was, he heard gears whirring, and then he felt something strike the ground. Neither the Bond villain nor the Henchmen had noticed Six had his gun out.

"Okay… get her." The Bond villain motioned with his head for the three henchmen to attack the girl.

 _BANG! BANG! BANG!_

All three of the henchmen dropped to the ground, dead, with .44 Magnum sized holes in the sides of their heads. The Bond villain looked at Six, first in shock, then in annoyance.  
"Of course. They grab all the Dust, but forget to disarm the people with guns, and they don't know a bounty hunter when they see one. Typical. I'll need to yell at Junior about that." he said, shaking his head. Six advanced on him, and he was backing out through the door.

Six and the girl were both now advancing on the Bond villain. "Regardless, this has been an eventful evening. I'm afraid this is where we'll have to part ways." he said, raising his walking cane, and firing a flare.

Both Six and the girl managed to roll out of the way of the flare, which exploded behind them.

"What the fuck was that?! Walking Cane grenade launchers?!" Six thought to himself.

Both Six and the girl frantically looked around for where the Bond villain had went. Six spotted him climbing a ladder, nearly at the top already. Six ran after him, and started climbing, but the girl, instead of climbing, fired what sounded like a 50 cal, and launched herself onto the building. Then, Six noticed she was carrying a scythe at least twice her size. Logically speaking, she shouldn't be able to carry that scythe, let alone launch herself that high. Then again, this wasn't exactly the most normal of days.

"How the fuck did she do that?" Six thought to himself again, before starting to climb the ladder faster.

* * *

When Six got to the top, he immediately saw an explosion, but when the smoke and dust cleared, the girl from earlier was now behind a woman who looked like a school teacher, and both were completely unscathed. The woman was holding some sort of stick out, and there was a purple rune being cast right in front of her. The rune faded away, and the Bond villain, who was in an air vehicle that looked like a Vertibird, looked panicked.

Six quickly unholstered his Kar98k and prepared to take the shot. He aimed for the Bond villain's head, but just as he was about to take the shot, the woman started pelting the "Vertibird" with some sort of energy projectile being cast from her stick, which shook the "Vertibird" everywhere. The Bond villain kept tumbling around the interior, and Six couldn't get a clean shot, so he activated Implant GRX again, and time began to slow down. Six tried to line up the shot, but he felt the whiskey starting to kick in physically. The Bond villain was still in Six's line of sight, and he was still tumbling around, but Six had finally managed to line up the shot after significant difficulty.

"Bingo." was what he said before he pulled the trigger.

Time began to speed back up, and there was now a red mist around the Bond villain's head. Six heard a long, drawn out scream, which meant the Bond villain was still alive. "Fuck." was what Six said to himself. He saw the Bond villain go inside the cockpit, and someone else came out.

Whoever they were, they were throwing balls of fire at the woman and the girl, but the woman was blocking them or diverting them. It was like a lightshow of red and purple, clashing with each other. The woman tried multiple times to bring the "Vertibird" down, but to no avail. She even penetrated the engines and wings with large chunks of ice, which should have killed it, but instead nothing happened. The person in the "Vertibird" must have had enough, because now there were red circles beneath the woman and the girl, and they both rolled away. That gave the people in the "Vertibird" enough time to get away, because it broke the woman's concentration on the ice chunks. Suddenly a giant plume of fire erupted from the circles. When the plumes of fire faded, and the "Vertibird" started to pull away, the girl folded her scythe into a sniper rifle, and started hipfiring it at the "Vertibird", but all the shots bounced off. The woman and the girl stared at it for a moment, and the girl turned to the woman. Six barely heard the girl say "Can I have your autograph?" before the woman turned to Six, having only just realized he was present.

"Er, hi?" Six said, giving a halfhearted wave.

* * *

 **SOME SORT OF INTERROGATION ROOM  
20 MINUTES LATER**

 **(A/N: I advise you start listening to the UNATCO Headquarters music from Deus Ex for this next bit, or the original scene music, your choice.)**

* * *

"I hope you two realize your actions tonight will not be taken lightly. You put yourselves, and others, in great danger." The woman said, pacing back and forth behind Six and the girl.

"They started it!" The girl responded, clearly upset.

"Actually, they did. I was gonna let it go, but then one of those shitbirds decided to try and rob me, so it isn't totally my fault that I got involved." Six said, leaning back in his chair, clearly not taking the situation seriously. The girl winced at his language.

The woman sighed as she moved toward the entrance of the room. "If it were up to me, you would be sent home with a pat on the back," the woman said, eyeing the girl, "and a slap on the wrist!" she continued, striking where the girl had her hands earlier. The girl pulled her hand back just before the riding crop struck where her hand was. "And you, whoever you are, would be rotting in jail for murder." She said, clearly angry that Six killed those thugs.

"What the fuck? They were criminals! They tried to rob me, for fucks sake! That's not murder, that's self defense!" Six yelled, trying to defend himself. The girl winced again.

The woman sighed, and rolled her eyes at Six. "Regardless, the situation is out of my control. There is someone here who would like to meet you both." She said, moving out of the way. In came a middle aged man, about 6'6", carrying a plate of cookies, and coffee.

"Ruby Rose." Was the first thing he said. He leaned in towards the girl. "You have… silver eyes?" he continued, as if that was supposed to be significant. Six assumed Ruby Rose was the girl's name.

Ruby just stuttered, trying to think of a response.

"Where did you learn to do this?" The man said, pointing towards some sort of tablet with a video feed of Ruby kicking the crap out of the two henchmen in the store, and launching herself up onto the building.

"S-Signal Academy?" She stammered out, unsure if she was going to be punished or not.

"They taught you to use one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed?" He questioned further.

"Well, one teacher in particular…" Ruby answered.

"I see." the man said, setting the plate of cookies down in front of Ruby.

"It's just that I've seen only one other scythe wielder of that skill before. A dusty old crow…" the man continued.

Ruby was currently stuffing her face full of cookies, and she mumbled something. She took a second to swallow, before speaking again.

"Blegh, sorry. That's my uncle, Qrow. He's a teacher at Signal. I was complete garbage before he took me under his wing, and now I'm all like _bywaaah_ , _wchaaah, hyaaa!_ " Ruby said, making some fake kung-fu moves.

"So I've noticed, and what is an adorable girl such as yourself doing at a school designed to train warriors?" The man asked.

"Well, I want to be a Huntress." Ruby said, suddenly shifting her tone of voice to be more serious.

"You want to slay monsters?" The man asked again.

"Yeah, I only have two more years of training left at Signal, then I'm going to apply to Beacon. See, my sister's starting there this year, and she's training to be a Huntress, and I'm trying to be a Huntress because I wanna help people, and my parents always taught us to help others, so I thought "well you know might as well become a huntress", but huntsmen and huntresses are so much more romantic and exciting and cool, and just, gah! You know?" Ruby responded in excitement.

Six looked at the woman and the man. Neither were particularly impressed. "I see." was what the man said, before turning to Six.

"And you," he said, "Where did you learn to do this?" He asked, with the tablet now showing footage of Six shooting the thugs in the head.

"Self taught." Six said. He wasn't trying to be smarmy or anything, most of what he knew about gunfighting was self taught, or learned experiences from bounty hunting.

"I see, and what is your name?" The man questioned.

"Nax Strag." Six said plainly.

"Where are you from, Nax Strag? I've never seen gunfighting skills quite like yours, I must say."

Six was drawing blanks. Should he tell him the truth, or should he lie?

"Well?" The man said, expecting a response.

"Er, I kind of just drift from place to place, actually. I wouldn't even call that a gunfight either, more like me taking advantage of the situation and punishing them for letting their guard down. Sure, I was fast, but that wasn't a duel or anything." Six responded.

The woman whispered something in the man's ear. He couldn't quite hear it, but he heard the word "Vacuo" uttered, and saw the woman roll her eyes.

"I see. Smart, and quick on the draw. Your type usually comes from Vacuo. What brings you to Vale?" The man asked.

"Like I said, I drift wherever I feel like going. Nothing special brought me to Vale, really." Six responded, careful to only tell half of the truth.

"Well then, I have a question for both of you. Do you know who I am?" The man asked.

"No clue." Six responded.

"You're Professor Ozpin, you're the Headmaster at Beacon."

Ozpin let out a short chuckle. "Hello." was what he said.

"Nice to meet you." Ruby said.

Ozpin suddenly got serious. "You want to come to my school?" he said.

"More than anything in the world." Ruby said, her pupils practically gleaming at the chance to get into Beacon.

The woman let out a quiet _hmph_ , and Ozpin turned less serious.

"Well, okay." was what he said, and Ruby's jaw practically dropped.

"What about you, Nax Strag? You clearly don't have anything actually taking up your time here in Vale, and I believe you would be a useful asset to us in Beacon. Sending you to a combat school would be pointless, since I believe you already know what they can teach you." Ozpin said, turning to Six, holding his hand out, expecting it to be shaken. The woman opened her mouth to protest, but Ozpin silenced her. He quietly mouthed "we'll discuss this later" to her, and she said nothing else.

Six quietly pondered his options. He could either refuse, and probably die on the streets of Vale due to unfamiliarity with the region, or get lynched by the mob for shooting their guys, or he could go to Beacon, where there would be food, water, shelter, and safety.

"Well?" Ozpin said, expecting an answer.

Six looked at Ruby. Something about her was telling Six that maybe he should accept the offer, and it wasn't the puppy dog eyes she was giving him. Six reached his hand out, and shook Ozpin's.

"I accept." was what Six said.

"Great, if neither of you have anything else to add, I believe we should be moving to put you two in with the First Years." Ozpin said. Suddenly, the room was bathed in a glow of blue and red.

" _How rude of you to not introduce me to these people! I go preoccupied for twenty minutes, and come back to find out you're being interrogated! The_ _ **least**_ _you could do is let me say 'hello'!"_ Allie said, trying her hardest to fake being offended. Six damn-near had a fucking heart attack because of what she just did. Everyone's eyes immediately widened at the sight of the hologram sitting on the table.

"Woaaah, what **are** you?" Ruby asked, eyeing Allie's hologram.

" _I'm an AI, silly! I run his suit, make sure he's still breathing, and almost give him heart attacks, like just now!"_ Allie said.

"Do you… have a name?" Ozpin asked, warily eyeing Allie.

" _Oh! My name is Allie! It's an acronym for Advanced Less than Lethal Infiltration and Espionage suit!"_ Allie said, blissfully unaware that she may have just soiled Six's chances of getting into Beacon.

Ozpin looked at Six. "That suit you're wearing, that's an infiltration suit?" he asked.

Six finally snapped out of the shock Allie showing herself gave him. "No, it isn't, at least not anymore. My suit is a mix of a suit of riot armor, which is what you see on top, the original suit Allie came from, which is on the bottom, and several other modifications. I'm not a fan of stealth, so I had those parts stripped from the original suit, and just merged Allie with the riot armor, because she's too useful to just leave in a pile of scrapped parts. Only reason she's still called Allie is because we're both used to it." he explained.

"Ah, I see." Ozpin said, staring at Allie. The woman was visibly upset, and moved her mouth to speak again, but Ozpin silenced her.

" _Also, I'm his girlfriend!"_ Allie blurted out.

Six groaned. "No, Allie, you aren't. Stop screwing with people." He said.

Allie started again. _"But-"_ , yet Six muted her. He looked at Ozpin.

"Look, can we go? I'd like to go before she says something even dumber." Six asked.

Ozpin stopped staring at Allie, who was now throwing an angry fit. "Of course, right this way, please." he said, motioning for the door.

* * *

 **THE NEXT DAY**

 **AIRSHIP TO BEACON ACADEMY  
8:47 AM**

 **(A/N: I strongly advise listening to Rey's Theme from The Force Awakens for the airship segment)**

* * *

A mass of blonde hair suddenly attacked Ruby with a bear hug. "Oh, I can't believe my baby sister's going to Beacon with me! This is the best day ever!"

"That must be Ruby's sister." Six thought to himself.

Ruby muttered something out, and her sister let go. "But I'm so proud of you!" She said.

"Sis, really, it was nothing." Ruby said, shrugging off her sister's compliments.

"What do you mean? It was incredible! Everyone at Beacon's gonna think you're the bee's knees!" Ruby's sister said, clearly overjoyed that her sister got in early.

Ruby clearly didn't realize that was a metaphor. "Okay, I don't wanna be the bee's knees, I don't want to be any kind of knees. I just wanna be a normal girl, with normal knees." She said, slightly upset.

Six finally spoke up "Ruby, she doesn't mean literally becoming someone's knees, it's a figure of speech for being cool."

Ruby's sister pointed a hand out towards Six dramatically. "Thank you! I was just about to say!" Ruby's sister took a minute to realize who she was talking to.

"Oh! You must be the one Ruby was telling me about, the one who helped her at the Dust store robbery?" Ruby's sister asked.

"Sure am. Wouldn't have gotten involved if they hadn't tried to rob me. What's your name?" Six asked her.

Ruby's sister, paused for a minute, like she forgot her name or something. "Oh! I'm Yang. Yang Xiao Long." She said, extending her arm for a handshake. Six took it.

Six looked at the two of them together. "Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose, huh? You don't look like sisters, and you don't have the same last name. What gives?" He asked.

"We share our father, our mothers were different." Ruby said.

"Ah, I see. That explains a lot, actually." Six said. "I'll leave you two alone, then." he finished, moving away towards a window to get a better view of Beacon Academy. Some of the people he passed by on the way were, well, strange, to say the least. First, everyone at Beacon looked like a teenager, but they had some really weird costume choices. He passed by two people, a guy and a girl, where the guy looked like Che Guevara in a ballistic vest, he even had the hat and something that looked like an AKM with so many attachments and modifications that it would make Mikhail Kalashnikov himself rethink designing the AK, and the girl, probably his girlfriend or something, looked like the 80s vomited her onto the airship. She had neon pink waist length hair with blue highlights, and two equally pink and neon MAC-10s, with some sort of blade where the straps would be normally. Another person looked about as tall as a Super Mutant, and had the muscles to back the look up. carried an equally big gun that looked like a Browning M2 with three barrels. Six didn't see any belts, so it was probably fed with a big fuck off magazine. Trailing right behind him was a brown girl, about 5'6", she was carrying an engraved bow, and looked like she was trying to avoid contact with people. Six noticed she was trying to cover some scales, and her eyes were distinctly reptilian. Six moved on, and looked out the window, watching the clouds go by. Six had never flown before, for obvious reasons. Allie showed up on Six's visor, and took a seat, enjoying the view. Six heard a voice start.

" _The robbery was led by nefarious criminal, Roman Torchwick, who continues to evade authorities."_ it said.

Six turned around, and saw the shitty Bond villain. "So, his name's Roman? That's a dumb name, Torchwick is even dumber." Six thought to himself. He noticed the guy who looked like Che Guevara had balled his fists in anger, but the girl he was with calmed him down.

" _If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the Vale police department. Back to you, Lisa."_ the voice said.

" _Thank you, Cyril."_ A nasally feminine voice said. _"In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights Protest turned dark, when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has now disru-"_ The voice was cut off, and the woman from yesterday was now displaying.

" _Hear that?"_ Six whispered so that only Allie could hear him. "Sounds like there's a race war going on."

The woman from yesterday started speaking. "Hello, and welcome to Beacon. My name is Glynda Goodwitch. You are among a privileged few who have been selected to attend this prestigious academy. Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future huntsmen and huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it. You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now, it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge, and the training, to protect our world." Glynda faded back out again, and there was a mumbling in the crowd of people. Six went over to the window where Glynda's hologram was, and saw Beacon.

Six didn't really know what to expect, but the place was fucking **huge** , the giant towers dwarfed even the remaining skyscrapers in the Boneyard, and the architecture felt more like a fairy tale than reality.

Allie just whistled at how impressive the whole thing was.

* * *

 **So, I need your guys' input on something, should I interject during scene transitions like I'm doing now to advise you to listen to a certain piece of music to set the mood, or should I cut that shit out?**

 **I didn't quite make my 10k words like I planned, but I got close, and this feels drawn out enough, so I'm ending it here. Trying to translate Ruby's ninja noises was a pain in the ass.**

 **If you didn't capture them immediately, this chapter features the redone JAMI. They've undergone some changes from their original incarnations, like how Marshall is as tall as a fucking super mutant, is as built as one, and how he has a fucking triple barrel M2 that I'm calling the Ripper for obvious reasons, or how Aqui has longer hair and also non Borderlands style SMGs. I even gave Jimmy (who is now Julius because I realized Jimmy Agilis fit worse than Julius Agilis) a tactical vest. Izzy is the only one who remains basically unchanged.**

 **Also, wanna hear some GRIMM RETREAT LORE™ that I originally planned? Courier Six was originally also going to be the Lone Wanderer, think like Tale of Two Wastelands. If I remember correctly, this was actually part of the original Grimm Retreat. That would have been exceptionally stupid had I continued that.**

 **ADDITIONAL LORE BY THE WAY**

 **Everyone on JAMI, and even Courier 6, has a theme that I never bothered to remove or change. Julius' theme is Wily Vs Zero V2 by KoD83, Aqui's is a Flashman Remix by rabfan15, Marshall's is Ain't No Rest for the Wicked, Izzy's is Ezio's Family from Assassins Creed 2, and Courier 6 has The Man Who Sold The World, specifically the version seen in MGSV.**

 **Strictly speaking, only Izzy's theme fits her because she's an assassin type character, and Six's if he were slightly edgier and more like Venom Snake. No idea what I was thinking with the other themes though, although I will maintain that Julius' and Aqui's themes are at least good for a regular listen if you're into Mega Man. These are all still written down on my text file I use for my character sheet from 2013 that I've changed over the years. Lore over, by the way.**

 **Write your reviews and tell me how I did this chapter.**


	5. The Wanderer

**Time for chapter 5, and we haven't had any significant fuck ups yet, so that's good. In the event that this chapter is published incredibly late, like, say, two to three weeks after 6/27/2018, assuming the late publishing is due to my streaming schedule on Twitch (yes, I stream, same name there as on here). On to the reviews.**

 **To Javier the Wordsmith: Thanks! I'm so glad you love it!**

 **To SilentXD7: Six isn't gonna go soft, I don't plan on it. He will get an aura, but his semblance is iffy, I'm kind of toying with the idea that since a significant portion of Six is made of machine, he technically isn't human enough to have a Semblance, but he is human enough to have an Aura. Maybe I'll completely scrap that idea and just give him one for simplicity's sake, I dunno.**

 **To LogicalWriter: No, Six doesn't have the Mysterious Magnum with him. He owns it, yes, but he doesn't use it. Sweet Revenge from New Vegas Bounties is his preferred sidearm for attachment reasons.**

 **To ODSTFRymann: I can't port it to the Xbox One, as this would be a mod for New Vegas, not Fallout 4. I know there is the Mauser Family mod that adds basically the entire Gewehr 98 family including the Kar98k, but they don't have right handed bolts which is incredibly sinful and I refuse to use any mod with the vanilla bolt action animations out of principle. Seriously, left handed bolt actions are so incredibly stupid in video games where** **YOUR MAIN CHARACTER IS FUCKING RIGHT HANDED WHAT THE** _ **FUCK**_ **WERE YOU THINKING BETHESDA USING BOLT ACTIONS LIKE THIS IN REAL LIFE IS ACTUALLY GODDAMN IMPOSSIBLE**

 **To Uncle Qrow: The Trueno will come back, it'll just be significantly different from when you last saw it.**

 **To Deku: Isn't that a thing taken from that one Hotline Miami 2/RWBY crossover that I referenced a shitton in the original story? Either way, no, Dust ammunition is basically like incendiary ammo in terms of how it works. Everything gun in RWBY in my canon uses gunpowder at the very base and then Dust is added on top to create the special ammos, because having Humanity be totally reliant on Dust, while an interesting idea for a writer far better than I, is not something I find plausible at ALL. Dust is still a significant part of Remnant's society, yes, but Remnant Society will have things like nuclear power and steam based mechanisms, just to name some examples.**

 **To the first Guest who put no name: Where did you get the impression that that was a leader for the Grimm? That was just a regular Beowolf, not some super alpha like from the Hotline Miami 2 Crossover mentioned above. The Grimm aren't a faction, and never will be, because frankly I find that idea incredibly dumb. They're animals with no real higher intelligence (except for the ancient Grimm lma)**

 **To Someguy the anon: The AE86 isn't a true AE86, it only has the frame, body and the doors of an AE86, everything mechanical about it is a mix of the Highwayman and Corvegas.**

 **To Fizz: Possibly, but retconning isn't out of the question. The only way we'll know for sure is when the game actually comes out. See above in regards to Six killing. As for the team members, that was team JAMI. In the original story I toyed with the idea of having Six get put on with team RWBY or JAMI, but I ultimately never decided what to do, as I cancelled it before the story got to that point. I've given it some more thought while writing this version of the story, and ultimately have decided that no, Six will not get put with JAMI or the existing teams. Six is his own entity, and I don't think shoehorning him in with RWBY, JNPR, or even JAMI, the literal team of original characters, would be the smartest idea. Y'see, Grimm Retreat wasn't actually originally Grimm Retreat, it was originally going to have a focus on JAMI if they were inserted into the story of RWBY with no Courier Six to be found, and that was the plan until about 2014 which was when I bought New Vegas, which I absolutely adore. I didn't plan on inserting Six until around late 2015-early 2016 when I finally got serious about writing the story. Also, while we're on the topic of Six in the early stages of Grimm Retreat, his semblance and aura were originally going to be control over literal balls of radiation. I'm telling you this now because they obviously aren't his semblances anymore and have no bearing on the story at large since the old Grimm Retreat is dead as far as I'm concerned.**

 **To The Many: That's kinda what I designed him as, and what Six plays like in the game, yeah. In regards to the 80s and Six not having that kind of knowledge, though, I said that Six found a vintage (for pre-war times, anyways) car magazine featuring the AE86, and since Six is literate, he does know the car came from the 80s and from Japan, because he read the magazine. Also, when you say Fallout's 80s didn't progress like our 80s did, I've previously stated in another author's note that the post divergence world in my canon DID largely progress like ours did, at least in terms of weapons and vehicle development. Even then, in the actual games the post-Divergence world seems to have progressed the same way politically ours did, minus the collapse of the Soviet Union and China becoming less socialist, because the Vietnam War likely happened, Reagan was president and the Reagan Era happened according to Fallout 2, and Nixon was also president, but he may have won the 1960 election instead. No dates are ever officially given, but in my canon the dates are the same as they are in the real world. At the end of the day, it's my story, so I'm free to do whatever I want with it that I don't find incredibly fucking stupid. Looking at you, Fallout 4.**

 **To the second Guest who put no name: Honestly, the color naming rule is such a minor part of RWBY's lore I don't think anyone actually gives enough of a shit about it. I didn't even know that was a part of the lore until I looked it up, I thought it was just Monty thinking of a naming convention that was convenient for him. It's not mandated by any sort of law, either, since there are people who aren't named after a color in the series, it's just a tradition.**

 **Also, nobody asked, but here's a music recommendation from my spotify playlist that I listen to while writing: Swedish Pagans by Sabaton, in fact, just listen to the entire Art of War album. I'd just post my spotify playlist, but I'm pretty sure Fanfiction would get pissy if I put a link to it in. Speaking of music, I still need your guys' input on me interjecting with music to listen to while reading, should I stop doing that or no?**

 **By the way, one last thing I need to mention, I've started a new fic called Girls and Guns, which is a Girls' Frontline fanfic. Normally I would tell you guys to give it a read and follow it if you liked it, but I actually desperately need feedback on it. I say this because the Girls' Frontline fanfic community isn't actually as big as I would like, and I can't get enough feedback from it due to how small it is. Seriously, there are literally nine other Girls' Frontline fanfictions across all ratings other than Girls and Guns. Go read that shit and review it, please.**

 **Enough rambling, on with the story.**

* * *

 **BEACON ACADEMY**

 **8:51 AM**

* * *

When Six stepped out of the airship and got a closer look at Beacon, it suddenly dawned on him how **huge** Beacon Academy was. From a distance, the towers looked about as tall as the skyscrapers in the Boneyard, but up close, they absolutely dwarfed those. Allie let out a whistle of approval. Unfortunately for both Six and Allie, the moment was immediately ruined by the sound of someone throwing up in the trash right behind them. Six turned around, and saw the unfortunate soul vomiting his breakfast.

" _How many times have you gotten motion sick while airborne, Six?"_ Allie asked.

"Only once, I think. Somehow, someone stole Bear Force One from Shady Sands and managed to fly it to Nellis without crashing it, and the Boomers apprehended the guy. Of course, being under the banner of Vegas, they alerted me to the situation, and I laid claim to it. The Boomers gave me a code for the Vertibird portion of their VR sim pods, and I used it. Got really bad motion sickness since I had never flown before, even if it was virtual, but I held my lunch in. Now I'm kind of just used to it." Six said, before turning back around to follow the crowd, and he caught up with Ruby and Yang.

"The view from Vale's got nothing on this." Yang said, crossing her arms. Ruby didn't say anything, as she was currently looking around at other people in the crowd, specifically their weapons, and was practically drooling over them.

"Sis! That kid's got a collapsible staff, and she's got a fire sword!" She said excitedly, stumbling to the left to get a better look at the girl with the fire sword. Yang reached out and grabbed Ruby by the hood. "Ow, ow…" Ruby complained.

"Easy there, little sister. They're just weapons." Yang said, trying to calm Ruby down a bit.

"JUST weapons? They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us! They're so cool!" Ruby said while making some exaggerated hand movements, obviously still excited. She turned to Six and pointed at him. "Like you! You probably love your weapons so much you have three of them!" She said, expecting an answer. This caught Six off guard, as he realized all of his guns were still slung over his shoulder.

"Er, yeah. Well, I have four, actually." Six said, flashing Sweet Revenge, which was sitting in its holster. Ruby's eyes practically turned to stars at hearing this information.

"Oohh! What's the story behind your weapons? Why do you carry so many? Why do yo-" Ruby was cut off by Yang.

"Ruby, cool it, if he doesn't want to tell you, that's fine." She said, trying to keep Ruby from mauling Six with questions.

"Actually, it's perfectly fine." Six said, casually. He pulled Sweet Revenge from its holster to show it to the girls. "This one was a gift from a mentor of mine. Decent guy, taught me a lot of what I knew." Six said, before reholstering it, and grabbing the barrel of the Kar98k. "This one is something I nabbed off of a bandit a few years back. She's served me well, and she's a beautiful rifle, easily my favorite." Six said, before moving on to the Survivalist's Rifle. "This one is an old service rifle, used by a soldier who turned into a survivalist, primarily out of necessity." He continued, before moving to the Ithaca. "This one is my first gun. My dad gave it to me, and I've kept it with me since I left home, I dunno, ten, twelve years ago?" He finished. Ruby's eyes were still stars.

"Wow, so what are their secondary modes?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"Pardon me?" Six responded, confused.

"You know, like how my Crescent Rose is a Scythe and Sniper Rifle, or how Yang's gauntlets are like brass knuckles and shotguns mixed together." Ruby said.

"They're just guns, Ruby. I'm not a fan of mixing weapons, if it spits hot lead into something's face to make it dead, that's good enough for me." Six said, and Ruby suddenly looked disappointed, but before she could say anything, Yang interjected.

"Look, I'd love to let you two chat about your love for weapons more, but we should probably be going now." Yang said, motioning to the significantly thinner crowd.

"Good point, sis, don't want to mess my chance up now!" Ruby said, before marching forward.

"Anyways, sis, why don't you try making some new friends?" Yang asked Ruby.

"Well, why would I need friends when I have you?" Ruby asked innocently.

"Weeell, actually, my friends are already here, gotta go, catch you later, 'kay see ya bye!" Yang said, with a crowd of people instantly appearing behind her, before both Yang and the crowd sped off towards Beacon, spinning both Ruby and Six around in circles.

"Wait! Where are you going?! Are we supposed to go to our dorms? Where ARE our dorms? Do we even have dorms? I don't know what I'm doing…" Ruby said, before both she and Six fell to the ground.

" _Nice, she gets abandoned by her big sister when she actually needs her. Real nice way to inspire confidence in your little sister."_ Allie said snarkily. Before Six could respond, someone else started speaking.

" _What are you doing?!"_ the voice said angrily. Six immediately sat up, and saw the source of the new voice, a girl with white hair done up in a ponytail and a frilly dress and skirt. He also saw that both he and Ruby managed to fall into a pile of luggage

"S-sorry!" Ruby responded, probably out of fear.

" _Sorry?!_ Do you have _any idea_ of the damage you could have caused?!" she said, absolutely fuming.

Ruby stuttered, before handing the girl one of her suitcases, which she promptly opened.

"This is Dust, mined and purified from the Schnee Quarry." the girl said, as if this was supposed to be common information. Ruby stumbled again. "What are you, braindead? Dust; fire, water, lightning, energy!" she said, still visibly angry, shaking a bottle of Dust. Ruby started acting up. "Are you even listening to me? Is any of this sinking in? What do you have to say for yourself?" she continued, expecting a response. Ruby sneezed into the cloud of red Dust that had now appeared in her face, which promptly detonated in a plume of fire, right into where the bitchy girl was standing, and the vial of Dust that she was holding went flying off in a random direction.

" _Guess that solves the mystery of what those vials we found in Moonvale do."_ Allie said, quietly observing the situation.

The smoke of the fire had almost immediately dissipated, showing the girl in the frilly dress now covered in soot. " _Unbelievable!_ " the girl in the frilly dress stomped her shoe, which seemed to evaporate all of the soot on her instantly. "This is _exactly_ the kind of thing I was talking about!" She said, positively _pissed._

Ruby pushed her fingers together. "I'm really, really sorry…" was what she said, incredibly embarrassed. Six finally stood up.

"Ugh! You complete dolt! What are you even doing here? Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?" she said, leaning in towards Ruby's face. Ruby stuttered even more. "This isn't your ordinary combat school, it's not just sparring and practicing, we're here to fight monsters, so watch where you're going!" she finished. Ruby started to speak, but Six cut in.

"Hey, princess, could you maybe, I dunno, chill the fuck out? Ruby's already said she's sorry, so stop acting like such a bitch to her, holy shit, seriously." Six said, annoyed at how much of a bitch she was being to Ruby. The girl in the frilly dress turned her attention to Six with an expression on her face that was a mix of shock and offense. She moved to speak, but in what seemed to be today's running gag, was _also_ cut off by someone else.

"It's heiress, actually. Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world." A girl with black hair and a bow said.

The girl in the frilly dress, now known as Weiss, turned to the girl with black hair, and her expression changed to that of a smug one. "Finally, some recognition!" she said, believing she had won the argument.

"-The same company infamous for its controversial labor forces, and questionable business partners." The black haired girl said casually. Weiss' expression immediately turned back to one of rage, and Ruby, Six, and Allie all started giggling at the situation.

"Wha-?! How dare-! The nerve of-!" Weiss stuttered in rage, before moving towards the girl and snatching the vial of Dust out of her hands, and storming off in a fit.

"I promise I'll make this up to you!" Ruby yelled after her. She sighed, and mumbled something to herself, before turning to where the black haired girl was standing, "So, what's-" was all she said before she noticed that she too was walking away. Ruby collapsed out of frustration, and mumbled something to herself.

Six walked up to her and stood over her, offering a hand to help her up. Allie just projected herself on the side of Ruby's face and gave her a few of what could only be described as cat slaps, only instead of a cat, it was a small, holographic woman carrying a subsonic carbine doing the slapping.

"C'mon, get up, Ruby." he said, holding his hand out. Ruby grabbed his hand and he pulled her up. "We're probably not assigned to dorms yet. They've likely got some sort of main hall event or whatever." he said, pointing towards the big building in the center.

* * *

 **BEACON ACADEMY AMPHITHEATER  
8:55 AM**

* * *

Ruby had somehow disappeared from Six's vicinity. She would probably find her way to the assembly hall anyways, and Six wasn't particularly upset about losing her. The most that would probably happen is a groundskeeper or someone would bring her to the assembly hall, or at least point her in the right direction. There was a big crowd in the hall, though, way bigger than what was on the airship. Allie, being able to read Six's mind, immediately spoke up. _"They're probably people who have already done their first year. Why they would still be on campus, I don't know, but that's my theory."_ she said. Six found a spot near the front of the crowd, right near the guy who looked like Che Guevara, his girlfriend or whoever she was, and the guy the size of a super mutant. The one who looked like Che Guevara turned around, took notice of Six, and opened his mouth to speak to him, but was immediately cut off by Ozpin taking control of the microphone.

Ozpin started speaking. "I'll…keep this brief." The crowd immediately quieted down. "You have travelled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people, but I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy." He said, not done. Several people in the crowd let out shocked gasps. "-In need of purpose. Direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step." He finished, stepping away, while Glynda stepped up to the microphone.

"You will gather at the Ballroom tonight. Tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed. Glynda said, sternly, before stepping away. The crowd immediately started talking again.

" _Might as well explore the place before nightfall, Six."_ Allie said, trying to make use of the time they had.

"Yeah, might as well. Not like we're on a shortage of time or anything." Six said, walking away. The guy who looked like Che Guevara turned around again to try to talk to Six, but he was already long gone.

"Just my luck." was all he uttered, before turning back to his friends.

* * *

 **BEACON GROUNDS**

 **9:12 AM**

* * *

Six was standing in front of a large tower. Specifically, the one tower in the center of the campus. He and Ruby were denied access earlier, thinking it was the main hall, but now people were flowing in and out of the tower.

"What is this place? Some sort of travel center?" Six said out loud.

"Actually, it's a communications center." Someone said behind him. Six turned around to see who was talking, and it was the black haired girl from earlier, holding a couple of books.

"Oh, you're the one who gave the prissy bitch the smackdown. Nice one, by the way. So, what do you mean this place is a communications center?" Six asked, genuinely curious as to what specific purpose the building filled in regard to communication.

"Well, it functions as one of four hubs for intercontinental communications. Each hub is located in each region's Huntsman Academy. Shade, Haven, Beacon, and Atlas all have one, and they provide constant access to communications for the academy and the nearest city. Specifically, the system enables intercontinental calling, access to the internet, and social media. Atlas gave it to the world as a gift after the Great War, to prevent another conflict like that from breaking out again." She explained. Six shuddered at the mention of a Great War.

" _Sounds like that ARPANET thing the DoD tried, only instead of it being a cool kids only club, everyone gets access to it. Huh."_ Allie said, listening in.

"So the hubs enable communications for an academy and the closest city. What about more remote areas, and what happens if one of the hubs goes down?" Six asked.

"Remote areas have smaller support towers, but connections there are spotty, since Grimm seem to be attracted to the towers for whatever reason. As for the hubs, if one hub goes down, either due to an attack or maintenance, the entire system goes down." She said.

"That sounds like a serious fucking flaw for a system that enables global communication. Did monkeys design this system or some shit? How does a flaw like that even get past the design phase or testing?" Six said harshly. The girl flinched at the word monkey.

"Well, there have been attempts to move the hubs and support towers into space, but the problem there is the further you get out of Remnant's orbit, the more Dust loses its powers. The whole concept's kind of dead in the water right now." She explained, with a slight hint of offense in her voice from the 'monkey' comment.

Six was absolutely stunned at this information. "Has nobody considered, I dunno, using nuclear power and solar panels to get around the issue of Dust not working in orbit? Not even fossil fuels? Seriously?" He said, in pure shock at how simple this problem appeared to be.

The girl sighed. "Unfortunately, all space efforts were funded by the Schnee Dust Company. That meant they had to use Dust, otherwise they would get defunded. There aren't going to be any further attempts at moving them into space, unless some rich business mogul who ISN'T affiliated with any of the Dust companies invests into fixing the issue." She explained.

Six was slightly less stunned. "Ah, that explains a lot. Corporate fuckery is my favorite flavor of horseshit, honestly." The girl nodded. "By the way, do you know where the armory is, if there even is one?" Six asked.

The girl looked around for a second, before pointing to the northeast. "Armory's right that way, it's the big concrete bunker in the ground, can't miss it. I don't think you can get anything from there right now, though." She said.

"Right, thanks, miss, uh…?" Six said.

"Blake." The girl responded.

"Right, thanks, Blake." Six said, before heading to where the armory was supposed to be. When Allie was sure Six was out of earshot of Blake, she spoke up.

" _You know her bow was twitching, right?"_ She questioned.

"No, but I don't really care. If you're insinuating that she's one of those Faunus things and is hiding it, she's probably hiding it for a reason. Remember, I'm hiding you for a reason, too." Six responded, lowering his voice.

" _What, you scared of showing people your girlfriend?"_ Allie teased.

Six stopped in his tracks. "Cease and fucking desist, Allie." he sighed. "No, I hide you because I don't want some assclown who saw you getting any bright ideas to try and knock me out, and try to steal you from me." Six said, starting to move again.

" _Aw, you're protective of your girlfriend? How sweet of you!"_ She teased again.

"Allie, for the love of every ruined stop sign in the Mojave, cease and fucking desist." Six commanded.

" _Fiiine!"_ Allie complained.

* * *

 **OUTSIDE THE BEACON ARMORY**

 **9:17 AM**

* * *

The building right in front of Six was exactly as Blake said it would be. It was a big ass bunker, although it was a bit bigger than Six was expecting, big enough to have big steel warehouse doors on the entrance, which people were shuffling through.

" _Reminds me of some of those storage warehouses in Big Mountain."_ Allie said.

"What's up with the size of this place? It almost seems excessive, honestly." Six said out loud, moving down the ramp and into the armory.

Six walked up to one of the empty counters and rang the bell.

Someone yelled out from further back in the armory. "One second! I'll be right there!"

Soon enough, a guy with a buzzcut and brown hair, who was about 6'1" came around wearing a duster, and carrying some sort of AR platform rifle, to greet Six. "Hey there, I haven't seen you around before. You a first year?" He asked.

Six raised his arms up in mock surrender. "Guilty as charged, officer. You the quartermaster?" he said.

That got a chuckle out of the guy. "Yep, I'm one of them! If you're here for ammo, I'm sorry to disappoint, but we're not authorized to give or sell any ammo to first years until they pass the Initiation test. Something about a specific group of first years taking pretty much all of the previous quartermaster's ammo stockpile a few years back, going to initiation, and then dying with it. Cost the academy a friggin' fortune, somewhere in the range of five million lien, I think." he said.

Six whistled. "Goddamn, I'm surprised they could carry that much brass with them. Anyways, that isn't why I'm here. I need to know if you guys stock the ammo I use." Six said, reaching into his duffel bag to pull out his ammunition.

"Here, lemme see them?" The quartermaster said, reaching his hand out. Six handed him a 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge, a 12.7x40mm cartridge, a .44 Magnum cartridge, and a 12 gauge buckshot shell. The quartermaster examined them. "Lucky for you, we carry all of your ammo. We're unfortunately on short supply of Schneezer cartridges though, so I'll have to have more imported, provided you survive the Initiation of course." He said, pointing to the Mauser cartridge. The quartermaster turned around and shouted to the back of the armory. "Zach, stop shagging that alien bodypillow for a bit, and go take stock of how many 12.7x40, .44 Magnum, 12 gauge, and Schneezer rounds we have!" he yelled. Six heard someone groaning further back, and suddenly an M249 box magazine was thrown towards the quartermaster, where it hit him in the stomach. The quartermaster doubled over in pain, and cursed.

" _How professional."_ Allie snidely commented.

The quartermaster quickly got back on his feet, saw there was a note taped to the box, picked it up, and read it. "Fuck you, Mike. My waifu is pure. Pure! Also, we're literally overflowing with everything but Schneezer, put the req in yourself. Signed, Zach." He said, subconsciously.

"You two treat each other like this a lot?" Six asked, leaning over the counter. The quartermaster, now known as Mike, jumped a little bit.

"Shit, I thought you left. Yeah, we were partners back in Vacuo, this isn't really anything I'm not used to." Mike said.

"Really, partners? What profession?" Six asked.

"Bounty hunting."

"No shit! You still do it?"

"Nope, the trade isn't what it was ten years ago. Back then, most hunters were true vigilantes, really only in it to help people where Shade couldn't. Now, it's mostly posers, glory hounds, and assholes, only in it for the fame. Zach and I felt the same way about it, so we left. We drifted around, and one thing led to another, and somehow we ended up as quartermasters for Beacon." Mike said, staring off into the distance.

"Is being a bounty hunter a popular stereotype for people from Vacuo?" Six asked.

"You mean aside from the stereotype that we're bandits, thieves, and murderers? Yeah, bounty hunter is a pretty popular stereotype. Not like it doesn't have merit, though." Mike said.

"Really? Why's that?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure if this story is necessarily true or not, but multiple ancient ruins from Vacuo detail the exploits of a legendary bounty hunter. This guy was the best in ancient Vacuo, apparently. He was a true vigilante, struck down injustice wherever he saw it, drove out entire criminal empires. Dude was legendary in his skill with a crossbow, and then one day he just…disappeared. Poof. Gone." Mike said, making gestures with his hands to put emphasis on the poof.

" _Sounds a lot like you, Six."_ Allie said.

"Did he have a name, a title, anything?" Six asked.

"The most consistent name I've seen is the One Eyed Vigilante, named after his lack of a left eye. Nobody knows why he only had one eye, but that's what the ruins claim."

"So, everyone in Vacuo with a sense of what can be considered objective moral righteousness wants to be like this 'One Eyed Vigilante' guy and become a bounty hunter?" Six asked.

"Right. That's how it was until about 10 years ago, when Shade finally got a decent hold on Vacuo's law enforcement, and bounty hunting started being taken over by said glory hounds. Most of the vigilantes either quit the profession entirely due to being unable to compete with Shade, or they went to Shade to become Hunters and Huntresses."

"That's a damn shame, if I'm being honest. From the way you were describing these bounty hunters, they seemed like decent people, provided you weren't a criminal." Six said.

Mike was still staring into the distance. "Yeah." was all he said.

Six clapped his hands together. "So, changing the topic, I need some cleaning supplies for my guns, you got any?" He asked.

Mike snapped out of it. "Right, we do, gimme a second." He said, before disappearing into the armory. It took a few minutes before he came back, carrying what Six normally used to clean his guns, or at least the local equivalent. Mike handed them over, and pointed Six to Mike's right. "Field stripping area is over there, go nuts."

Six took the supplies, and nodded his head. "Thanks, man," was what he said.

When Six got out of Mike's hearing range, Allie spoke up. _"Didn't you clean your guns two days ago?"_

"Yea, but I have no idea if that teleportation or whatever it was that brought us here damaged my guns. Sure, the Kar98 shot that Torchwick clown fine, but that might have been a one time thing, and it could be damaged as far as I know. I'd feel more comfortable knowing my guns all work fine, Allie." Six responded.

* * *

 **MANY HOURS LATER**

 **BEACON BALLROOM**

 **8:55 PM**

* * *

When Six got into the ballroom, pretty much everyone was already asleep on the floor, it was like trying to avoid stepping on a landmine in the most heavily mined place on the planet. Six looked around for a spot, but didn't really find one. He did, however, see an open door to a balcony.

" _Considering sleeping under the moon, Six? I don't blame you, I hate large crowds."_ Allie said.

When Six stepped out onto the balcony, he noticed something he hadn't noticed two days ago, Remnant got fucking _cold_ at night. Not like the Mojave, where cold meant "slightly less hellish than normal", no, this was damn near freezing. Six sat against a wall, and slid his body down onto the floor. Suddenly, it got very, very warm in his armor.

" _You're welcome for that, Six."_ Allie said.

Six sighed. "Right, thanks Allie. Forgot I had that installed for the trip to Utah." he said.

"Mind pulling up that manual you mentioned the other day? I'd like to see what else you have that I've been missing out on." Six asked, and Allie obliged, pulling the manual up. Six had all of about a minute to look at the manual before someone caught his attention.

"You the guy that shot Roman Torchwick?" A male voice to his left asked. Allie pulled the manual down, and Six turned to look at the source of the voice. The guy who was talking to him was the guy who looked like Che Guevara, and directly behind him was his girlfriend or whoever she was, the human Super Mutant with the triple M2, and the snake girl.

"Depends, what's it to you?" Six said.

"Chill, I'm not here to kill you, if that's what you're thinking. I actually want to congratulate you."

"Huh? That's… not the response I was expecting. From the impression Glynda or whoever she was gave me, you people aren't all too fond of people getting killed around here." Six said.

Che and his girlfriend got closer, and sat down near Six. "Nah, they really aren't. I'm Julius Agilis, by the way." Che said, holding his hand out for a handshake, which Six took. "That's Aqui, the big guy is Marshall, and the girl hiding behind him is Izzy." Julius said, pointing to the girl with blue highlights, the human Super Mutant, and the girl with scales, respectively. Aqui gave a shy "hello", Marshall saluted, and Izzy just hid behind Marshall, trying to minimize her presence.

" _Is that a legion name?"_ Six thought to himself.

Julius continued talking. "Anyways, I'm not worried about taking lives, as long as it means the world is improved at large. Sure, Hunters and Huntresses are encouraged to spare people, but I have a personal philosophy that if someone is horrible enough, I won't spare them." he explained.

"Elaborate?"

Julius paused for a moment, before starting to speak. "Let's say there's a raping, murdering, pillaging psychopath on the loose for, I dunno, ten years. Even if he does get captured and either rehabilitated or imprisoned, there's the problem of that person still being alive and able to cause chaos. All it takes is one prison break or relapse and they're back to doing exactly that, raping, murdering, and pillaging. A bullet or two prevents exactly that from happening again." he explained.

"So, how does this come back to Roman?" Six asked, genuinely curious as to why Julius' motives were like this. Julius and Aqui looked at each other, then back to Six. They both sighed simultaneously, before Julius started talking.

"About eleven years ago, Aqui and I lived in a small town called Moonvale, it was a fair distance away from Vale proper."

Oh.

"Y'see, Aqui and I were still young and not fully aware of what was happening at the time, but the town was harboring some wanted mob snitch. I remember overhearing my parents saying something about how the town hall had received a threat to either turn the snitch over, or the entire town would be burned to the ground, and everyone would be killed. The mayor didn't listen. Around a week after I overheard that, Aqui and I were playing together in my mom's room, when suddenly, we're getting ushered into her closet and are told to stay put and stay quiet. Neither of us knew what was happening, so we go along with it. I saw my dad come in soon after with his rifle, and my mom and dad barricaded the room. Probably five minutes later, a bunch of mafia goons burst in. My dad shoots a few of them, but one of them was near the window, and shot in, killing him. My mom screamed and fell back, and in comes Roman. He monologues for a bit about how simple it would have been for the town to hand the snitch over, and then just has one of his henchman execute her. He then looks at the closet, smirks like a smug ass bitch, and leaves with his men. When we were sure he was gone, we got our stuff and hauled ass to Vale, not stopping for anything. One of the gate guards there stopped us, gave us some water, and had us brought to my cousin's house after I explained what I saw. Aqui and I moved in with her, and a few years later, I got the idea to become Hunters, and we prepared to go to Signal. We both wanted to become Hunters to prevent stuff like what happened to Moonvale from happening to other people." Julius explained.

"So, to make this clear, you and Aqui are hunters to fight crime, and you, specifically, consider someone like Roman Torchwick to be unable to be helped, and a constant risk to society, so he should be killed. Is that correct?" Six asked.

"Bingo."

"That's… not the worst motive I've seen for someone wanting to fight crime. Why not become a cop, though?"

"Vale PD are incompetent as hell, and we like the autonomy that comes with being a Hunter."

"Fair enough, I suppose."

"Look, I'd love to chat more, but we should probably be heading to bed. See you at the Initiation….?" Julius said, realizing he hadn't gotten Six's name.

"Nax."

"Right, see you at Initiation, Nax." Julius said, heading inside, while Marshall, Izzy, and Aqui filed in after him.

There was a brief silence, and Allie broke it. _"Wanna watch a movie? That was pretty depressing to have to listen to, and I could use something to take my mind off of that."_

"Yeah. Tombstone or A New Hope, your pick."

" _A New Hope it is. We've watched Tombstone too many times, and I'm a tad sick of westerns at the moment."_

"Fair enough."

* * *

 **That… took way longer to put out than it had any right to. Seriously.**

 **So, to clarify some things and point some shit out.**

 **-Julius as a character is like a significantly less edgy Punisher. He won't kill you over petty theft or doing drugs or any minor shit, but if you are a morally atrocious human being in his eyes with zero chance for retribution, you get fuckin clapped.**

 **-A New Hope is part of my canon, but the series only went as far as Return of the Jedi, no prequels here. Not like it's gonna be that significant anyways.**

 **-Julius and Jimmy have completely different backstories when compared to each other between the stories. Whereas Jimmy was intended to be a happy go lucky casual squad leader with a fairly normal upbringing (same with Aqui), they now have both lost their innocence at an early age which led them down a completely different path than they likely would have if they hadn't lost that innocence. I'm doing this in an attempt to give them a chance to actually develop as characters. Had the original Grimm Retreat continued, Jimmy and Aqui would have been fairly flat. By doing this, I'm giving them the ability to grow from their (fairly narrow) mindset right now. It won't be like a David Cage game where its "DURR TRAGEDY TRAGEDY TRAGEDY PLEASE RELATE TO THIS CHARACTER WHO NEVER HAS ANYTHING GO RIGHT FOR THEM AND ITS JUST CONSTANT TRAUMA" all the fucking time, they'll actually display levity and have personalities, which, admittedly isn't a high bar to beat considering I'm comparing this shit to David Cage.**

 **-Aqui and Julius were 6 when Moonvale was attacked, making them 17 as of Grimm Retreat.**

 **Now for some stupid bullshit you don't give a flying fuck about;**

 **Moonvale wasn't originally supposed to be where Julius and Aqui were from, but I changed it last minute. It probably shows.**

 **Mike and Zach, the quartermasters, are a reference to mikeburnfire. Go give them a watch if you want, they're funny as fuck.**

 **The caliber of the Survivalist's Rifle is a reference to the caliber that the UNSC pistols in Halo are chambered in (12.7x40mm) because I couldn't find anything identifying the caliber in New Vegas.**

 **Also, one last thing, go read and review Girls and Guns if you haven't already, because feedback is dreadfully slow for that, and I want input.**

 **Leave feedback, and 'till next time.**

 **-Tweak**


	6. Out of Body

**Hey, I don't have too much to say this time around, other than I got an Xbox One and bought the Master Chief Collection to play Halo, which I've been sorely missing as of late. Shit's as fun as I remember. Anyways, on to the reviews. Also, I've finally decided what Six's semblance is, but I'm not telling anyone what it is until I choose to reveal it.**

 **To Javier the Wordsmith, yes, Julius would kill people over lolicon. In my opinion, lolicon is effectively child pornography. I don't give a damn if this character that looks like a child is actually a 500 year old demigoddess who never ages physically, they are a child as far as I'm concerned.**

 **To kpmh2001, you get your answer below. Nice avatar, by the way.**

 **Also, I haven't gotten any written input on my use of musical cues, so I'm making a strawpoll. Go to strawpoll itself, and put this at the end of the url: /16148993 and vote. I'm using them one last time before I finally get input on what to do with them, assuming you guys don't want them.**

 **On with the story.**

* * *

 **UNKNOWN WAREHOUSE IN VALE**

 **1:15 AM**

* * *

"Unbelievable. You let yourself get beat by a little girl and a sand crawling troglodyte? How does that even happen?" Cinder said angrily, glaring at Roman. He whimpered like a puppy, and shyed away from her, revealing his right eye, or lack thereof. Where his right eye should have been, there was instead a bloodied bandage covering his eye socket.

"I… got cocky." Roman said, defeated.

Cinder continued to glare at him, her eyes filling with hate and anger. "Really, now? You nearly get killed in what should have been an easy take, because you thought nobody would be able to land a shot on you, and you got cocky? Maybe hiring you for this operation was a mistake…." she said, trailing on.

Roman immediately turned to face her. "No, it wasn't! I got cocky, yes, but we have the Dust, the bounty hunter won't be able to track us, and the girl is probably being reprimanded by that Huntress. We're fine." he said, trying to calm her down.

Cinder rolled her eyes at him. "Somehow, I doubt that, but against better judgement, I'm going to trust you not to screw up like this again. Remember, you're on thin ice, Torchwick." she said angrily, turning to walk away from him.

"Wait." Roman said, reaching his hand out. Cinder stopped walking. "That bounty hunter, the one who shot me, see if you can dig anything up about him."

"I was already intending on doing that." Cinder said, annoyed, before walking off.

Roman just sighed, and continued tending to his bandage.

* * *

 **?**

 **?**

 **(A/N: Listen to Ambient Wonder from Halo CE for this next segment)**

* * *

When Six woke up, he immediately noticed he wasn't on the balcony of the ballroom anymore, and that it wasn't early morning like he was expecting. Instead, it was broad daylight. Six looked in the corner of his eye to check what time it was, but his helmet wasn't there either. Six looked up, and tried to find the sun to tell the time, only there was no sun in the sky. Six immediately stood up, and his heart started racing. He wasn't on solid ground, either. Where the ground should have been, there was only a fluffy layer of clouds that, somehow, he was able to stand on. His heart started racing even faster. Six looked around, and saw only clouds, contrasting against the blue sky with no sun. Suddenly, Six felt a pit develop in his stomach, and raised his arm to pinch himself to see if he was dreaming. When he raised his arm, though, he noticed something.

He could see out of his left eye.

Unnerved, Six touched the scar across his face, and felt nothing, only smooth skin. Even more unnerved, Six pulled his duster's sleeves back, and took his gloves off to check his hands.

He still had his natural hands, not the cybernetic ones he was supposed to have. They weren't even cut at the wrists, like they were after he was kidnapped by Brookshire and handed off to Marko. He even touched them both to see if they were real, and sure enough, he had feeling in them still. Six tried to flick vision modes on his right eye, but to no avail, it wasn't working.

"This has to be a dream…" Six mumbled to himself.

"Is it?" someone said behind him.

Six immediately drew Sweet Revenge, turned, and pointed it at the source of the voice. Only, Sweet Revenge wasn't there. In fact, none of Six's guns were. The source of the voice, though, was a bearded man in his early thirties, with brown hair that was shoulder length, blue eyes, and he was wearing a white robe and simple brown sandals, and he was smiling directly at Six. Six immediately felt a calming presence wash over him, and was put at ease, despite how little he trusted complete strangers.

"Please, relax, my child. I'm not here to harm you." he said, smiling warmly.

Six put his arms at ease. "Then what are you here for?" he asked.

"I am here for many reasons, but please, follow me, my child. We have much to discuss." the man said, motioning for Six to follow him. Six followed, albeit reluctantly. Not like he had any other choice, anyways.

* * *

After what felt like an eternity, Six and the man came to a small golden gate, which was being guarded by an elderly man in a simple blue shirt and golden robe. The man bowed before the younger man, and opened the gate for the both of them, and they continued walking, although instead of walking on open terrain, or clouds, or whatever it was, they were now walking on a brick road literally paved with gold. Six whistled, impressed. The man who he was following turned around and looked at Six, still smiling. "If you think this is impressive, wait until you see where we're heading, my child." he said. Six's mind raced at the possibilities of what he was about to see.

* * *

 **(A/N: Play The Maw from Halo CE for this next bit)**

* * *

After several minutes of walking, Six and the man came to another gate, though this one looked like it was made of iron instead of gold. The man in the robe turned to Six. "I advise you to shield your eyes for now, your mortal eyes might not be able to handle what you are about to see, my child." he said, before turning back to the gate and holding his arms out, like a preacher would.

Six was confused. "What do you mean?" was all he could say, before the gates suddenly opened, and Six was blinded. Instinctively, he shielded his eyes. The pain he was feeling could only be described as multiple knives constantly stabbing him in the eyes. Several seconds later, the pain subsided, and Six kept his eyes partially covered, and kept his head at a level where he could see up to the other man's waist.

"Follow me, please. We're almost there." the man said, and Six saw him start walking ahead. Six continued following him.

Several minutes later, Six had seen the man he was following stop in a crowd of people wearing simple white robes. They were talking in a language unknown to Six, but the man he was following was surrounded by them. After a short while, they stopped talking, and the man continued on through the crowd, and Six followed him. However, the crowd was giving Six a wide berth. Six was tempted to question why, but felt that it was better to ignore them and move on.

* * *

Finally, the man he was following stopped in front of a building, and Six heard a door open. "Step inside, please. You can also stop shielding your eyes now." the man said, and Six stepped inside, quickly lifting his hands from his eyes so that he could see. What he saw was beyond words.

The building he was in was like a mansion on Earth, but was so much bigger than the ones Six had been inside of before, if the foyer was anything to go by. The floors were made of some kind of dark wood, and the walls were all solid gold, with platinum trimmings on everything. There was an artificial waterfall in the back of the foyer that was flowing down into a small pond, with a ring of seats around the outer edge of the pond. There was even a skylight that was letting in moonlight, despite it being broad daylight outside, and the interior of the foyer was largely lit with candles except for the area under the skylight. The walls, floor, and even the furniture all looked like they were freshly made and polished, without a speck of dust in sight. Six could even hear faint chanting that sounded vaguely religious.

He turned around to look at the man he had been following, only to find him missing. Six looked back, and saw the man sitting by the pond. Six walked up to him, and took a seat next to him. Six turned to the man, and spoke. "So, who are you, and why am I here?" he asked.

The man simply chuckled. "I believe you already know who I am, and I know who you are, Courier Six. Or do you prefer Nax Strag? I know that neither of these are your real name, but it appears that has been lost to time, and neither I, nor my Father, appear to be able to recover it, unfortunately." he said, looking into the water.

Six remained silent, and the man sighed, before looking at Six. "I see that you don't trust me. Allow me to reintroduce you to an old friend of yours." he said, before whistling. Shortly after the man whistled, Six heard a dog barking, and heard jingling quickly approaching. Six looked to his left, and saw a German Shepard come running up to the man. The dog got up on his lap and started licking the man's hand, until the dog took notice of Six. It cautiously moved over to Six, sniffed him, and then tackled him, and started licking his face. That got a laugh out of the man. "I believe you've met Rex before, Courier Six. Do you trust me now?" he said.

Rex eventually hopped off of Six, and sat obediently by his former owner, panting, and Six sat up. "Yeah, I suppose I do now. Just one question before we get down to brass tacks; why is Rex a normal dog now, instead of a cyberdog?" he asked, slightly confused.

The man chuckled. "The same reason you don't have your scars, your cybernetics, and why you have your left eye and your hands. You are in a realm far beyond mortal comprehension, and here, everything is as it should be, with no imperfections. Does that answer satisfy you, Courier Six?" the man said, smiling at Six warmly.

Six shrugged. "Sure. So, why am I here? I've been transported from Earth to Remnant, and have now been brought to a plane of what I assume are deities. Either I've seriously angered one of you to get thrown around the much, or I'm about to have some heavy news dropped on me." he said.

The man stared at Six, and sighed. "I'm going to be honest with you, a great evil threatens Remnant. While I don't expect you to entirely care, I do hope you'll be willing to at least hear me out." he said.

Six leaned in closer. "I'm all ears." he said.

The man sighed in relief. "Good. Unfortunately, neither I, nor my Father know the full extent of what this evil is, only that it directly threatens Remnant, and that your fate is intertwined with that of this planet. Your fate is also tied to the girl with silver eyes, Ruby. Neither of us know when this evil will strike, but it will happen before the end of the year. That's all I can tell you, unfortunately." he said.

Six looked at the man with piercing eyes. "All you can tell me, or all you want to tell me?" he said, trying to coax an answer out of the man.

"All I can tell you, honest. My Father's power, as well as my own, have greatly diminished over the past few millennia. We don't have as much insight into this situation as we would like, and we would tell you more if we could, but we simply can't."

Six thought he heard a familiar voice call out to him, and so he listened for it, but didn't hear it a second time, so he resumed talking to the man. "So, there's a grave evil threatening Remnant, I got that bit, but what about the part where I get back to Earth? I'd rather not be stuck on Remnant for the rest of my life after this 'great evil' is sufficiently filled with lead." he said, impatiently tapping the rim of the pond.

The man looked down at his legs, before looking back up and staring blankly at Six. "I don't have an answer per-se, but my Father specifically ordered me to relay this message to you should you ask about returning home. Are you ready for the message?" he said, making sure Six wasn't going to have an outburst or anything.

"Always have been, always will be. What's the message say?"

The man's eyes turned black, and he suddenly looked like he was being puppeted. "When the bear falls forever, the green man leaves the shining beacon for the sands of time."

Six was confused. "That's incredibly cryptic. I know 'shining beacon' likely means Beacon, but what does the rest of that mean?" Six asked.

The man shrugged. "I have no clue, unfortunately. My Father, as much as I love him, has developed an unhealthy habit of speaking in riddles. However, his powers, even when we have both been weakened, still far surpass mine, so perhaps he sees something in your future that I do not."

Six sighed, and looked at the waterfall. "So, is there anything else I need to know?"

"Your ancilla, Allie, you must keep her safe. She will be incredibly important in the coming months, and prying eyes working under the great threat to Remnant will want to take her from you, and use her to their own ends. Do NOT let this happen." he said, warning Six in a harsh tone of voice.

"Understood, I didn't intend on letting anyone steal her from me, anyways."

The man smiled. "Good. I should be letting you go, however, I have a gift for you before you leave. Stand up, please." he said, and Six did as told. The man also got up, got close to Six, and reached his right hand out, and touched Six's armor, and suddenly, a bright glow filled the room, and Six felt a large surge of energy rush into his system. Before he could ask the man what he did, Six faded away.

* * *

 **BEACON BALLROOM BALCONY**

 **7:10 AM**

* * *

" _Six, come on, get up, please!"_

Six slowly opened his eyes. Instead of seeing the sunrise, he saw Aqui in his face, with some sort of blue aura around her hands, which were at his chest. Allie was sitting on her shoulder, absolutely in tears.

" _No, please, don't go, not now, no, no…."_ Allie said to herself, trying to wipe away the AI equivalent of tears.

Six sat up, Aqui moved back almost instantly, and Allie looked up from her hands in confusion, and the blue aura quickly dissipated from Aqui's hands. Allie's face quickly changed expressions, from confused, to angry, to upset, and then to elated, and she got down from Aqui's shoulder, and hugged Six's left hand. Suddenly, Julius came over, and kneeled down to get eye level with Six.

"A bit rude to not introduce us to the little lady, wasn't it?" he said jokingly, gesturing towards Allie.

"I had my reasons, Julius."

"Yeah, we know, she filled us in. We won't tell a soul about her, I swear."

"Good. Why did you guys even come up here in the first place, though?"

Aqui knelt down to get eye level with Six, and spoke up. "You missed breakfast. When she found out no one had seen you since last night, Glynda asked if anyone had spoken to you before everyone went to sleep, Julius and I said we had, and she had us go look for you. This was the first place we checked, and we found you lying there. We just thought you were still sleeping until Allie showed up, bawling her eyes out, and she filled us in on what was happening to you."

"And what would that have been, exactly?" Six asked, cocking his head to the side.

Aqui gestured to Allie, who was still hugging Six's hand. "She said your vitals were going crazy, and from what I could tell, your heart was beating faster than should be physically possible. According to Allie, you had also flatlined several times already, only to return to life, somehow. I didn't know what was going on, but I tried to stabilize you for as long as I could." she said.

Six was confused. "How did you try to stabilize me without any medical equipment?" he asked.

"I used my Semblance. I can heal people a lot more effectively, especially in comparison to them using just their Auras." she said, holding her hand out, and summoning the blue aura from earlier as a demonstration.

Six had no idea what Semblances and Auras were, but if they helped keep you alive, then they had to be good.. "Oh, I see. Well, thanks for keeping me alive, Aqui. God knows what would have happened to Allie if you hadn't come and I was gone." he said, looking at his AI companion.

Aqui smiled. "Not a problem at all, Nax." she said, before her eyes widened at something. "Oh! That reminds me, when I was trying to stabilize you, I found out your Aura was locked. I was going to ask if you wanted me to unlock it, if and when you woke up, but didn't immediately, because that likely would have made your situation even worse, so I just started monitoring it along with everything else, and just before you woke up, your Aura was unlocked. I dunno how, or why it unlocked, but it did." she said, slightly surprised that she almost forgot to tell Six this.

"So, do I have your healing powers now?" Six asked, still confused.

Julius butted in. "No, Nax, you don't, you have your own semblance. Everyone has an Aura, which is like body armor, but everyone has a different Semblance, which is usually related to someone's personality or their natural skills. For example, my Semblance enables me to create afterimages of myself, because of how fast I can run, and it even lets me speed myself up more, and Aqui's lets her see both mental and physical injuries as well as heal the physical ones easily." Julius explained, checking his watch. "Uh, Aqui, we better be going, Glynda'll have our heads if we're not back in the next few minutes. That means you too, Nax." He said, offering Six his hand to help him up.

Six just got up on his own. "Lead the way." he said, gesturing to the door, before disabling the microphone on his helmet, making him inaudible to the outside world.

"Follow me, Nax." Julius said, heading through the door, Aqui in tow. Six silently followed.

* * *

Allie appeared on Six's visor, sitting down, red faced and teary eyed, although she wasn't crying anymore. _"Six… what happened back there? In the three years we've been together, I've never heard of, nor seen anything like that happen to anyone, not even before the Great War, and to have it happen to you, of all people…."_ she said quietly. " _Six,_ _I haven't been that afraid of you dying since Frosthill, when Marko buried you alive."_ she said, obviously trying to stop herself from bursting into tears again at having to remind herself of that experience.

Six followed Julius and Aqui into an elevator. "Promise me that you won't think I'm lying?" he said, leaning against the elevator's back wall, and it started moving.

Allie paused for a moment. _"Promise."_

Six sighed. "I… had an out of body experience." he said, not exactly sure how to put what he experienced to words.

" _I don't think you're telling the whole truth, Six. Having an out of body experience doesn't cause your vitals to go crazy like that. What actually happened?"_ Allie said as the elevator doors opened, and the trio stepped out into a T-junction in the halls.

Six was about to answer Allie, but Julius interrupted him. "Nax, everyone's getting their gear in the locker rooms. You should probably grab something quick to eat in the dining hall, and then head outside. Initiation starts just outside the windows in the dining hall, you can't possibly miss it." he said, pointing to a wide doorway that was likely the dining hall.

Six just nodded, and went inside to grab something to eat. "We'll discuss this later, Allie." he said.

Allie just huffed.

* * *

 **BEACON CLIFFSIDE**

 **7:21 AM**

 **(A/N: Listen to Out of Shadow from Halo 3 for this bit)**

* * *

Six came out of the dining hall's exterior door, and saw a large crowd of people by the cliffside. Six quickly finished the last of the slider he grabbed, pult his helmet back on, and headed over join the crowd. Even though Six was behind several people, he immediately felt eyes fall on him. Glynda's and Ozpin's, specifically. Six lowered his head to try and minimize himself, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ozpin motion for Glynda to do something, she nodded, and left his side to come behind the crowd. She came behind Six, tapped him on the shoulder, and motioned for him to follow her. Six did as directed, and Glynda led him to some sort of metallic pad, before she returned to Ozpin's side, and he began talking.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated within the Emerald Forest." he said.

Glynda spoke up. "Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates. Today." she said.

Ozpin picked up after her. "These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone whom you can work well. That said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." he said, and the crowd had a mixed reaction to this news. Six didn't really care who he was partnered up with, as long as they were competent.

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the north end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way, do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you **will** die. You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one, and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?" Ozpin said.

Someone spoke up. "Yeah, um, sir?" they said, but Ozpin ignored them.

"Good! Now, take your positions." Ozpin said.

Wait, positions?

Six looked to the left, and saw Weiss go flying into the forest, and then he saw people getting launched after her, down the row. Immediately, Six realized what was happening, and tried to brace himself for launch. He could hear the person who tried to ask Ozpin a question talking, and then he heard a scream. Before he could process what was happening, Six felt himself flying through the air, high above the roof of the forest, quickly hurtling towards the ground.

* * *

 **Bit of a filler chapter, but eh, who cares, that's a fine place to end this one.**

 **So, I had a bit of a goof that's been around since the earliest versions of Grimm Retreat. I always assumed you could channel your raw Aura as well as a semblance and have it be a power as well as having a semblance. I only recently realized that this was objectively fucking wrong, Aura is just an energy shield from Halo, the semblance is what channels the aura, you don't get two powers. What I did to remedy this was merge the two abilities I had planned for the aura and the semblance into just the semblance, so as an example, Julius had enhanced speed as his Aura pre-realization, and afterimages as his semblance, and once I realized this, I just combined them. Same with Aqui, Marshall, and Izzy. I just scrapped Six's Aura ability, which would have been precognition, so he only has his semblance, not both abilities.**

 **There's also a bit of a hint towards Six's story arc I mentioned in an earlier chapter. I'm mostly going to stick to RWBY's story, but the arc is the one major exception at the moment.**

 **Also, I know I've been shilling hard for Girls and Guns, but I've kind of realized that I can't actually continue that story further. I'm not going to go into full detail, but effectively, this means Girls and Guns is on an indefinite hold until the Girls' Frontline international server sorts its shit out in terms of lore and story, which will be within a year or two assuming we don't have accelerated events/get the KR treatment. On the upside, though, this means Grimm Retreat's rewrite gets more attention from me, instead of dividing myself between the two. Sorry if you read and enjoyed G &G, but the issue isn't with me, its with how MICA has laid out their lore, which is incredibly difficult for me to work with. I'll put up a full explanation in a new update on G&G at a later date, if you want to read the specifics.**

 **Don't want to inflate the word count any further than I already have to, so 'till next time. Be sure to leave reviews, by the way.**

 **-Tweak**


	7. Initiation

**New day, new chapter. Sorry this one took so long to publish, I got to 5k words and went "alright, I'll make it 10k words later on" and then retroactively went "fuck it, this is a good point to end it, I'll just finish it out and publish it because they're probably starving for a new chapter."**

 **Just want to get a few things out of the way, though.**

 **First up on the chopping block, the poll regarding the music. Nobody voted. I mean this. Literally nobody voted at all. I got one point of feedback from someone who was in favor of it, and basing the general consensus on music off of literally one guy is an awful idea, so I'm just gonna paste the link below and then you all can vote.**

 **strawpoll .me/16148993 (delete the space between strawpoll and .me)**

 **There. Go vote.**

 **Next up: I'm proud to announce that Grimm Retreat's Rewrite has smashed the stats of the original Grimm Retreat in every category except for views, which the rewrite has only just over half of the original story's. The original story has 17k words that only barely drive the plot forward, 8 actual chapters (the ninth was me announcing the original version of the rewrite where Six was gonna cause trouble before I changed it into what it is now), 23 reviews, 19k views, 43 favs, and 61 follows.**

 **For comparison, the rewrite has 30k words that I write with full intention on using to drive the plot forward instead of as brainless filler like in the original, 6 chapters at the time of writing, 7 when this goes live, 32 reviews, 10k views, 76 favs, and 131 follows. The fact that in just three months I have destroyed all of the original's stats and gotten the total views to just over half of what the original had in its entire lifetime is incredibly encouraging. Seriously, thank you all for the reception I've gotten. I genuinely mean this, I never expected to really take the story as far as I have, even after the rewrite, but purely by learning how to tell what shit storytelling was and what good storytelling was, I think I managed to salvage what I think was my worst story (Terrariabound doesn't count because I was just new to writing fanfiction, Grimm Retreat was just actual shit.), and make it into something I can genuinely look at with some sort of pride. Thanks for all the support, here's to many more chapters. Enough of my sappy bullshit, though.**

 **Finally, reviews.**

 **To Six, I can understand why you're bugging out after that bit, but you have to remember, Six isn't entirely human. He's a 100% completion Courier with tons of implants from Project Nevada and Old World Blues who has seen a lot of bad shit happen (courtesy of New Vegas Bounties for the most part), and isn't quite right in the head, but he's learned to cope with that to the point where you wouldn't even be able to tell that he got shot in the head, went on a hell march to kill the guy who shot him, took a shit on two armies and a pre-war business tycoon over Hoover Dam and came out on top, survived the Sierra Madre, the Big Empty, Zion, and the Divide, was the top bounty hunter in the Mojave, working under both Steven Randall and as an independent contractor for the NCR, and survived being captured, partially mutilated, and being buried alive, only to come out of the fucking grave and bury the guy who tried to kill him. What I'm trying to say is that** _ **maybe**_ **the scene in Heaven wasn't actually totally real, and the Blowout might have damaged Six's implants and mental state enough to have the hallucination happen, not that he wasn't already mentally fucked before. It did unlock his Aura, though, and nearly killed him. If you're worried about that scene turning the story into some form of Christian propaganda, don't be, I'm an agnostic atheist, and I prefer avoiding modern political issues for sanity's sake, including taking sides on religious issues. I just included it because I found it to be the most convenient way to get Six his Aura.**

 **To caddy: By other antagonists, you mean Father Elijah, the Think Tank, and Ulysses? If so, yeah, I'm planning on mentioning them in detail at some point down the line. I'm actually having a second go through the DLCs, except for Dead Money, which I played for the first time. Dead Money is as shit as I was expecting, fuck the ghost people and their lack of damage modifiers. Honest Hearts has great story, trash gameplay because Zion's layout suuuuuuuuuuucks, and yao guai are cancer, Old World Blues is funny as hell and incredibly entertaining, and Lonesome Road has an awful story because LOL YOU DESTROYED THE DIVIDE XDDDDD FORCED PLOT THAT IS FORCED ON THE PLAYER THAT THEY NEVER GET TO SEE OR ACTUALLY TAKE PART IN, HAHA, AWESOME! THIS IS AN AWESOME THING WE STILL DO HAHA ITS NOT LIKE IT WAS A NECESSSARY EVIL IN DEUS EX OR SOMETHING**

 **Actually, when I was writing this paragraph out, I had just finished both Lonesome Road and the main game on the character that Grimm Retreat's Courier 6 was based on, although their routes are different, with Grimm Retreat's Six going independent, and the save I was playing going House. Since this Six is based on my House character, I kind of grew attached to the Survivalists Rifle once I grabbed it. Seriously, I fucking loved that gun after I nabbed it in Honest Hearts, it was my most used weapon for the remainder of the game, and that kind of gave me an idea. Remember how I replaced Hanlon's Sequoia with Sweet Revenge almost immediately? Yeah, well, I'm doing it again, this time I'm replacing the AKM with the Survivalists Rifle. The AKM was kind of just, well,** _ **there.**_ **I didn't do anything with it, so I may as well swap it out for something I actually like, plus it lets me do some cooler shit with Six's semblance that I'm STILL NOT FUCKING SPOILING DON'T GODDAMN ASK.**

 **To Golden Nova: I'd love to take your review into consideration mate, but I can barely read a fucking word of what you wrote, so I'm gonna address what little I could understand. No offense. I take creative liberties for a reason, that is literally the point of doing it, deviating partially from the source material for the sake of creativity. I** _ **know**_ **gunpowder, nuclear power, and solar aren't a thing in RWBY, but if RWBY's universe was an actual thing that existed, they WOULD have these things. You genuinely cannot tell me with a straight face that they would blindly believe Dust would never run out, because that line of thinking is the most naïve fucking thing. Yeah, it's a miracle material, but thinking it will never run out is a quick way to nuke yourself. I mean for fuck's sake, just look at Fallout's universe, which is the other half of this crossover. They were overly dependent on oil, which obviously ran dry because society's oil needs surpassed production, and then ended up destroying pretty much the entire planet over it, barring Africa and South America. I have no idea what the fuck you are on about with RWBY's ballistics though.**

 **To Rio Skyron, I never considered that comparison, honestly. Maybe if they do cross paths at some point, I'll bring that up.**

 **To NoahTheNerd, see my response to Six. I understand being wary as fuck about this kind of thing, and you're right to be cautious, but the implementation of a supposed divine quest for Six isn't gonna make him go DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT all over the fucking place. He'll still be Six, but going forward with the idea that he is important to Remnant's future according to his perception of God.**

 **Some utter mad lad reviewed the original Grimm Retreat while I was writing this chapter, allow me to enlighten you with his wisdom.**

" **LET THE COMMIES HIT THE FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR"**

 **good meme**

 **Also, I just remembered the name of one of the fanfictions I took some inspiration from for Grimm Retreat. It's called New World Blues. Specifically, what I took inspiration from it was the idea of Six being a cyborg (although all 100% completion Couriers are cyborgs in one way or another, some more than others), Six being an alcoholic (NWB's Courier is also a chem addict), and, unintentionally, the use of the Transportalponder to get to Remnant.**

 **Anyways, on with the story.**

* * *

 **THE EMERALD FOREST**

 **IMMEDIATELY AFTER LAUNCH**

 **(A/N: Listen to More Than His Share from Halo 3: ODST here)**

* * *

" _Got a landing plan?"_ Allie asked. Six didn't bother humoring her, and kept looking for a possible landing zone. _"We're about 300 feet above the forest roof, impact in thirty seconds. If you've got a plan, Six, you better make it quick."_ She advised.

Six kept looking for an opening. "On my mark, activate GRX, I'll handle the rest." he said, continuing to scan for an opening.

" _Gotcha, twenty seconds to impact."_

Six saw his opening.

" _Ten seconds."_

Six was now plummeting to the ground, and he reached his arms out to grab a tree branch.

" _Five seconds."_

"Mark!" Six barked, and suddenly, time slowed down just as he was falling through an opening in the forest roof. Six latched on to a particularly large tree branch near the top of one of the trees, and managed to swing himself under it, and then over it, landing almost perfectly on the branch. Six stumbled, nearly falling off, but managed to regain his balance.

Allie appeared in front of him, holding a wooden sign that had a 9 on it. "Funny." Six remarked.

Allie smiled. _"You don't get the full ten points because you stumbled."_ she said, before throwing the sign up in the air, where it quickly faded into the void. Six brushed her off, and looked down.

"Let's see, now… how am I gonna get down?" Six mumbled, looking for a clear path to the forest floor. He looked around a bit, and he saw a set of rather thin tree branches that looked barely strong enough to support his weight leading down. Six looked around for branches that might support his weight better than the set he just saw, but didn't find any. Six sighed, and started inching his way down to the ground.

* * *

Six jumped off the final branch and hit the dirt with an audible thud. He immediately got on one knee, drew Sweet Revenge, and started scanning the area for any possible contacts. He saw none, so he holstered the revolver, and stood back up, but his armor locked up, and Allie appeared in front of him, but instead of being a small hologram that would be able to sit in Six's palm, she was fully sized, about 5'6". _"Just where exactly do you think you're going, Six? We're in private, and I'm not picking up any life signs on my scanners. We're gonna be alone for a good while, here, so you might as well tell me what happened this morning."_ She said sternly, staring at Six.

Six tried to move, grunting, but to no avail, and he gave up with a sigh. "Unlock my armor, and then we'll talk, Allie." he said, and he felt his armor loosen up almost immediately, so he sat down in the grass, and Allie sat directly across from him.

" _Well?"_ She said, still eyeing him.

Six was hesitant. "Well, I wasn't lying about having an out of body experience. Remember how when Marko buried us alive, I started getting delusional and started talking to myself, thinking I was talking to Jesus, who was about to take me to Heaven, just before I passed out?" Six said, looking at Allie.

" _Yeah, unfortunately. Why?"_

"The reason I brought me talking to myself in the coffin up was because after I fell asleep last night, I woke up in some sort of dream. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I think I died and went to Heaven, at least for a little bit." Six said. "My scars were all healed, I had my original hands instead of the cybernetic ones that I needed after Frosthill, and my left eye was there, like Benny never shot it out." He said, touching his scars, hands, and eyepatch, respectively. "I haven't read scripture in twenty odd years, but I'm pretty sure that having all of your impurities and injuries removed and healed is a part of being in Heaven." Six said, eyeing the ground.

Allie sat up straight. _"That's it? You nearly die on me, and think you went to Heaven, all because your scars were remo-"_ She said, but Six cut her off.

Six's sight quickly shot back up to Allie. "I'm not done." he said, holding his hand up to silence her. "After I noticed my scars and wounds were all healed, I heard someone talk behind me, like he snuck up on me, so I tried to draw Sweet Revenge and point it at him, but then I realized I didn't have any of my guns. The guy who was talking to me looked like Jesus. Simple robes, sandals, shoulder length brown hair, blue eyes. If that's not enough, I felt…calmer when he was around, it was like I couldn't bring myself to attack him if I wanted to."

" _You couldn't bring yourself to attack him? Did it feel like the Pacification Field the Think Tank use?"_ Allie asked.

"It felt like the Pacification Field, yeah, but this guy was the source. He wanted me to follow him, and seeing no other option, I did. He took me to some sort of small golden gate being guarded by an older man, probably sixty or seventy, who, if I had to hazard a guess, would be Saint Peter. He bowed to the guy who looked like Jesus, and opened the gate, letting us through. I kept following the guy who looked like Jesus, we found a golden brick road, which we followed, and came to another, larger gate, with this one being made of iron, and he told me to shield my eyes. I didn't have much time to react before he opened that gate, and my eyes felt like they were being cooked in their sockets for about a minute, before the pain faded. I just kept my eyes shielded for the rest of the trip. Eventually we came to a crowd of people who crowded around the guy I was following, and they talked for a good while. Couldn't understand shit, though. Eventually they went back to their business and let us pass, although everyone was giving me a wide berth for some reason. Eventually we came to his….I dunno, his mansion, I guess." Six said.

" _And?"_

"When I stepped inside, he told me I could unshield my eyes, and when I did, I couldn't believe my eyes. His mansion was pristine, gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe it. The floors were all made of some sort of dark wood, with the walls being made of solid gold with a platinum trim, but it didn't feel tacky, not like at the Ultra-Luxe, it felt like was done with some taste and class. The main foyer kind of looked like the gambling floor at Gomorrah, minus the slot machines, card tables, and hookers. Instead, it had an artificial waterfall that lead to a pond, where the guy was sitting, so I went and sat next to him and asked what he wanted with me, and he feeds me something about knowing who I am, and that I apparently knew who he was, which I guess, means he was Jesus, but I still don't know. He then said that I didn't trust him, and then called Rex over, which is one way to gain my attention. Anyways, after that, he explained to me what was happening. Basically, some sort of 'Great Evil' threatens Remnant, and will strike within the next few months. I asked him for details, but he couldn't provide any, said something about his power being diminished over the past few millennia. After that, I asked him how to get back to Earth when I kill this 'Great Evil', and he only gave me a riddle."

" _What was the riddle?"_

"When the bear falls forever, the green man leaves the shining beacon for the sands of time. No idea what it means, but after that, he told me to keep you safe, because people working under the 'Great Evil' will want to steal you from me and use you to their own ends. Not that I was going to let that happen, anyways. After that, he told me to stand up, which I did, he put his hand on my chest, and I disappeared, and I woke up to Aqui in my face, and you crying on her shoulder thinking I was dying. When he touched my chest, I felt…invigorated, like I had been given a second lease on life, which must be that Aura thing Aqui and Julius were talking about." Six said, looking at Allie for a response.

Allie just looked at the ground, frowning, not sure if Six was lying to her or not. "Allie, look at me." Six said, and Allie did so. "Allie, you've been my friend for three years, we've been through a lot of shit together, and I don't think I've ever trusted someone with my life more than I do you. I trust Russell, Cass, and Veronica to watch my back in a fight, sure, but I don't trust them to keep me alive as much as I do you. Without you, I would probably be Tunneler shit in the Divide, or strung up on a cross over Hoover Dam, or have frozen to death out in Utah. You've kept me alive through the worst of what the Wasteland has to offer, and I've never had a reason to lie to you, especially now that we're on a foreign world, and getting back to Earth is our mutual goal, so why would I start lying to you now?" Six said, staring at her.

Allie just avoided eye contact. _"I…suppose you have a point. I'm sorry, it's just so much to take in, what with us getting sent to Remnant, not knowing what's going on entirely, and you almost dying on me, plus the genuine possibility that we might not be able to go back to Earth, it's been a stressful few days."_ Allie said, ashamed that she stopped trusting Six, even for a little bit.

"It's fine. We better get moving, or we're not gonna make the cut for Initiation." Six said, trying to reassure Allie.

" _Right."_ Allie said, disappearing, and Six got up and started heading to the temple.

* * *

 **FIVE MINUTES AFTER LANDING**

 **(A/N: Listen to Peril from Halo 2 for this)**

* * *

Julius stalked his way through the thick underbrush, clutching Thunderstick close to his chest. He came to a clearing, but was still hiding inside of a bush. In the clearing, he saw a small pack of Beowolves, about ten strong.

"Strange, packs this size usually have an Alpha." Julius said to himself, and he waited for an Alpha to show itself. After a few minutes, when no Alpha showed up, Julius decided to engage. He slowly poked Thunderstick out of the bush, took aim at the closest Beowolf, and fired a shot. The Beowolf instantly dropped dead, and the pack was confused for a minute. Three Beowolves sniffed the air, looked in Julius' direction, and started running towards him. Julius took aim at one of the Beowolves, and fired three shots, and it dropped dead. He took aim at the second, shot five rounds, and it too dropped dead. The third one was too close for Julius to properly aim at, so he just fired the rest of his magazine into it, and by the time Thunderstick ran dry, the Beowolf was barely recognizable anymore. Julius hit the magazine release, tossed the empty magazine into his pouch, grabbed a fresh mag from his plate carrier, put it into Thunderstick, and pulled the bolt back, keeping an eye on the rest of the pack the whole time. The remaining six Beowolves were keeping their distance, but were snarling at him.

Julius smirked. "Good, I wanted to brush up on my melee skills, anyways." he said, and quickly transformed Thunderstick into Bushwacker and Chopper, a pair of twin machetes with incredibly sharp, serrated blades, and he channeled his semblance to increase his speed, and he charged at the pack, machetes at the ready.

The Beowolves expected him, but they didn't expect him to be so fast, and were caught off guard, a mistake that cost two of them their lives when Julius ran them through. After those two, Julius turned around, and readied the machetes, waiting for the other four to make a move. The rightmost one tried to jump him and swipe him with his claws, but he parried the attack with Chopper, and stabbed the Beowolf through the head from under the jaw. The one next to that Beowolf tried to capitalize on Julius being distracted, but Julius had anticipated this, and put the body of the dead Beowolf between him and the live one, blocking an attack, before the body disappeared, and Chopper fell out from the now immaterial skull of the Beowolf. Julius caught Chopper by the handle, and leapt into the live one, ramming both Chopper and Bushwacker into the upper abdomen of the Beowolf. It howled in pain, and Julius drove both blades deeper into its torso, twisting them, before pulling them out and bisecting the Beowolf in two strikes, one with each machete, and Julius turned his attention to the other two. One of them turned tail and ran, leaving the last Beowolf to face Julius. It quickly leapt at Julius, knocking him off of his feet, and the Beowolf capitalized, getting on top of Julius to pin him down. The beast tried to grab Julius' head to slam it into the ground, but Julius kept dodging, before kneeing the Beowolf, stunning it. Julius then pulled his legs back and kicked the Beowolf off of him, picked up Bushwacker, and decapitated the Beowolf in one clean strike.

Julius flicked Bushwacker and Chopper to get the blood off of them. "Not bad, guess I retained more than I thought I did." he said, still flicking them. Julius heard stomping behind him, and turned around to see the Alpha Beowolf of the pack, snarling angrily at him. "Oh, fuck." was all Julius said, before the Alpha punched him in the chest, knocking him clean off of his feet and onto his side, and stunning him. The Alpha stomped over to where Julius was, put him on his back, and then howled in his face, making sure to pin Julius so he couldn't escape.

Julius was sure this was the end, and when he saw the Alpha raise its claw to crush his skull, he closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable. Only, instead of the inevitable, he heard a hail of gunfire coming his way. The Alpha let go of Julius and turned its attention to the gunfire, and Julius opened his eyes to see none other than Aqui distracting the Alpha with Horizon and Eclipse. It started running towards her, and Julius saw his chance, so he quickly got up, grabbed Chopper and Bushwacker, and dove into the Alpha, blades out, and drove them into its back. The Alpha yelled in pain and almost immediately kicked Julius off, turning its attention towards him. Barely five seconds passed after that when Aqui ran up behind the Alpha, and slashed at it with Riser, the katana form of Horizon and Eclipse, cutting its tail off at the base and cutting up its back, leaving a faint pink trail where the blade had travelled. The Alpha jumped back to gain distance between itself and the two initiates, weighed its options, and then ran for the forest.

Julius turned to Aqui. "Thanks for the assist, Aqui." he said. She gave him a friendly smile.

Suddenly, Julius yelled in pain, and fell over, and Aqui immediately rushed to his side, using her semblance to find out what was wrong with him. "That Alpha cracked your ribcage, Julius. Lay still, and I'll handle it." She said, worried, and she got to work healing him.

* * *

 **15 MINUTES AFTER LANDING**

 **(A/N: Listen to Under Cover of Night from Halo CE for this bit, or Cloaked in Blackness if you prefer that version)**

* * *

Marshall marched through the forest, Ripper at the ready. Ripper was around 100 pounds, but for someone like Marshall, lifting it felt like nothing, and the firepower she brought to the table was practically second to none. Three heavy machine guns in one steel wrapped package, chambered in 12.7x99mm that shot at 600 RPM each, all fed from their own individual belts, she was practically the definition of overkill.

Nothing had snuck up on Marshall, at least not yet, not even a potential partner, so he kept marching. At least, until he heard rustling in a bush to his right. Marshall stopped dead in his tracks, and cautiously watched the bush. It rustled again, and then he heard growling, and then saw a pair of red eyes. Almost instinctively, he pulled the trigger on Ripper, and let her loose onto the bush. Ripper firing was like a symphony of thunder, with each barrel letting off its own individual lightning strike, going down the row one after another in quick succession. Marshall kept the trigger depressed for about seven seconds, before letting go to examine the damage. The bush was no longer there, and all that was really left was part of a Grimm's skull mask, and a paw, which Marshall went to examine, setting Ripper down on the ground.

"Beowolf Alpha. Twenty odd years old, by the looks of the skull fragment. Pretty big paw, too. Surprised I didn't just tear his arm off outright." Marshall said, chuckling, before patting Ripper. He picked his gun back up, and continued marching.

* * *

Marshall heard a loud roar behind him, and quickly turned around, Ripper at the ready. He saw two Ursai charging directly at him, and without missing a beat, he pulled the trigger on Ripper, and tore into them. They both quickly met their ends at the hail of high caliber gunfire, and evaporated into nothingness. Unfortunately for Marshall, an Ursa Major happened upon the scene, saw the two evaporating Ursai, and then roared in a blood fueled rage, most likely, she was the mother of the Ursai Marshall just killed.

Marshall instantly pulled the trigger again, focusing as hard as he could to bring down the Major, but it just shrugged off Ripper's hail of bullets like it was nothing. The Ursa Major was about to pounce Marshall, when it just dropped dead, leaving Marshall confused, until it evaporated, and three arrows fell from the Major's neck. Marshall then heard a sound to his left, and turned to see a familiar figure drop down from a tree.

"Hey, Iz." Marshall said to the figure.

"G'day, Marshall." Izzy replied, shouldering Crescent Fang.

"How'd you find me, Iz?" Marshall asked, lowering Ripper so as to not point it at his friend.

"Gee, I dunno mate, it definitely wasn't you shooting that big bloody gun you carry around." She replied sarcastically, pointing at Ripper. "You know what, though? You're not even the one who's attracted the most attention around here. Saw someone fight a King Taijitu alone, and saw some unlucky sods walking into a Death Stalker cave." she said, looking off in the distance, before turning to Marshall. "So, I guess we're partners now, Marshall, like you couldn't get away from me enough already." she said sarcastically.

"Yeah, I guess so. Lucky me." he replied, and he continued marching towards the north.

* * *

 **ONE HOUR AFTER LANDING**

* * *

Julius came out of a bush near a hill, and into a clearing, and saw a ruined circular stone structure, with what looked like pedestals inside. He turned back to the forest. "Found the temple!" he shouted, and Aqui came out behind him shortly after. They both headed up towards the ruins, with Julius having a light limp. The pair quickly realized that they weren't the first ones there, a black haired girl and a blonde girl had beaten them to it. "'Sup?" he said, announcing his presence. They both just looked at him before carrying on, and Julius examined the "relics", which were actually just chess pieces and playing cards. There were a couple other items that didn't fall into those two categories, though, like some sort of poker chip made out of a precious metal, a pair of fuzzy dice, an X-Ray and Vav comic, and an Achieve-Men album from before Rae left the band.

"So, what do we do? Like, do we take two relics, or…?" Aqui asked, confused.

"I think you're supposed to just take one back. All of my friends who've gone through Initiation here before said they just took one relic and they got assigned to a team based on that." the blonde said, examining a knight piece, before she turned to the black haired girl and asked "How about a cute little horsie?" to which the black haired girl just smirked at her and said "Sure." Aqui turned her attention back to the relics, and was about to grab the Achieve-Men album, but out of the corner of her eye, saw Julius pick up one of the Ace of Spades playing cards.

"Got it." he said, flipping the card around, and Aqui let go of the album in disappointment, and Julius tossed the card in the air. "That wasn't too hard. I expected more chaos, or man versus wild type shit, not what amounted to a rather pleasant walk in the woods." he said, catching the card.

Suddenly, a distant scream rang out, and caught everyone's attention, except for the black haired girl. "Did you guys hear that? A girl's in trouble!" the blonde said, pointing roughly where the scream came from. Julius heard something else getting close, though, and it sounded like someone saying "heads up" rather slowly. He looked around the clearing, and saw nothing. He was about to give up, but then he looked up, and felt something hit him like a freight train, and suddenly his world got very, very dark.

* * *

 **That's all for now. Just some things I want to clear up.**

 **First, I know I'm gonna get shit for having Julius kick the shit out of ten Beowolves, but I would like to remind you that in the Red trailer, Ruby takes on a pack of 30 some Beowolves. Ruby is 15 years old at that time, as far as I'm aware, and had only gone to Signal at that point and wasn't even finished yet. Julius is 17, and HAD gone to combat school and fully completed it, unlike Ruby. Besides, he rightfully gets the shit kicked out of him by the Alpha Beowolf, so fair's fair. Julius getting the shit kicked out of him by the Alpha is actually a remnant from the original story of Grimm Retreat where Jimmy (the original incarnation of Julius if you haven't caught on yet) was supposed to get overly cocky and get either grievously wounded and nearly killed, or outright killed. This was going to be a big emotional moment between Aqui and Jimmy, but the story obviously never got that far, and I don't think at the point where this was gonna happen that my writing skill would have been up to snuff.**

 **Someone will give me shit for the bit with Marshall killing the two Ursa Minors easily. I'd like to point out that Ripper is three Browning M2HBs in one weapon, and I genuinely doubt the Minors would be able to survive the pure fucking dakka of it.**

 **Izzy, despite her last name being Ferizini, which sounds distinctly Italian, is actually based on the Inland Taipan, the most venomous snake in the world, which is only found in Australia (big surprise there), hence why she uses Aussie slang. She also sounds like an Australian. She was actually originally based on a Cobra, because both Izzy and Marshall were designed by a friend of mine back in 2013 when I was still drawing up the plans for what would become Grimm Retreat, but when writing this chapter I actually pretty much went "fuck it, what's the most venomous snake in the world that I can make Izzy into. oh, the inland taipan, an Australian snake? izzy will now say cunt every other sentence, hell yeah."**

 **Conveniently, Izzy's personality traits of being shy and more or less withdrawn are traits the Inland Taipan has, as they are generally reclusive and not total assholes. Plus, having four characters on a team with American accents is kind of boring, so throwing an Aussie one in is good.**

 **Thunderstick, Chopper, and Bushwacker are all names I came up with on the spot. Horizon and Riser are the names of songs from Dance with the Dead, while Eclipse is the name of a Perturbator song.**

 **'Till next time.**

 **-Tweak**


	8. Old Wounds

**New chapter, nice. Updates are gonna slow down considerably, by the way, cause school's finally started back up and I don't have the time to write as much. The results are finally in from the poll regarding music, and the majority of those who voted voted to keep the musical cues, so that shit's staying. Also, I got a new keyboard. My old one was a Razer Blackwidow 2012 that had finally started to shit out on me by inputting keys twice, and my new keyboard is a Corsair Strafe RGB with MX Silents, and its infinitely superior in my opinion. I just need a new mouse now, and I don't have to deal with inane shit like my stuff crapping out on me. On to the reviews.**

 **To Rio Skyron: There's gonna be minor CRDL bashing. I have absolutely zero intentions on going overboard with it, though. Maybe I'll make them less shitty by giving them some sort of redemption story or some shit, but we'll have to see.**

 **To Caddy: Y'know, truth is, I never actually properly completed New Vegas Bounties 3. I *SPOILER ALERT* got up to the bit where Marko and his gang execute the town, but the scene fucking bugged out when he was supposed to execute Randall, so I was just left sitting there with my thumb in my ass waiting for Randall to die. I eventually just used the console to free myself, reset my size, and killed everyone, and then I installed a version of NVB that adds the gnome so I could leave. Fuckin' bullshit, too, cause I brought Sweet Revenge and intended on wiping Marko with it, but got cucked with a nasty gamebreaking bug.**

 **To Constipated Genius: Thanks! I make it a point to have things be detailed as much as I possibly can. Allie's not a mod, she's the Stealth Suit Mark II AI. I can understand the overload of details regarding characters, yeah, so I'll see if I can do anything to ease the load. As for Six's inclusion, dude, you should read the original story. I fucked that bit up so goddamn badly it was one of the major reasons why I started the rewrite in the first place. The "green man" isn't an OC. Six is like, 24 or 25 if I remember right. Yeah, I suppose excessive melodrama with minimal plot development between characters is a bit too common on this site, huh? Good thing I'm not a hormonal, overly emotional teenager like I was a few years ago. As for the Beowolves, I know they're the cannon fodder of RWBY, but I was considering introducing a few more Grimm variants that act more like cannon fodder, and bumping the Beowolves up in the rankings. We'll have to see, though. Also, fuck yeah, Doomguy would absolutely love the Ripper, just wait until you see the secondary fire. Speaking of, I was actually planning on making a Doom mod sometime down the line using ideas from Grimm Retreat, so I might make the Ripper a chaingun replacement if I ever do that.**

 **Also, one more thing regarding the music. I've been watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood lately, and that has some good ass music that I intend on using for some of the more dramatic moments.**

* * *

 **(A/N: Play Luck from Halo 3)**

* * *

Julius woke up, and almost immediately regretted it. His head felt like it was being simultaneously held in a vice and being repeatedly bashed with baseball bats, and he couldn't really breathe. Julius tried to move his head, but found it stuck. He started trying to flail around to free himself, and his wish was granted when the weight on his head was lifted, and Julius took in a huge breath of fresh air, and sat up, rubbing his head, and then he noticed it; he couldn't hear or see properly, as his ears were ringing, and his vision was blurred, and he was seeing double. He could see vague outlines of figures, and he could hear what sounded like people talking, but he couldn't see any details or hear what they were saying, so he rubbed his head to try and clear his sudden headache away.

He then felt a sudden feeling wash over him, like he just had a bucket of warm water dumped over him, and he quickly started to feel better. He stopped rubbing his head, and instead tried to focus his vision on his hand, and saw that his vision was significantly clearer now, but still a bit blurry. He stopped focusing on his hand and looked up. To his left was a girl with a blue glow in her right hand, running it over him like a scanner.

"Aqui." Julius thought to himself.

To his right was a girl he hadn't seen before, or at least one that he didn't remember. She had black hair with red highlights and silver eyes, wearing some absurdly large skirt and hoodie combo. She looked like she was crying, and she was practically bowing to him. Behind her was a blonde girl and a girl in a white dress who looked like they were arguing with each other, and behind those two was a girl with black hair who was just watching the whole thing. Julius finally felt his hearing starting to come back, so he listened in on what everyone was saying.

"…oh my god, oh my god, I'm so sorry, please forgive me! I didn't mean to land on your head! It was an accident, I swear!" the girl on his right said, frantically.

"Your dolt of a sister nearly killed him!" the one in white yelled.

"You're her partner! You're both responsible for each other! If anyone here's to blame, it's you!" the blonde yelled back.

"Oh, I'M responsible now, am I?"

They kept at it, and Julius just tuned them out and focused his attention on the girl with red highlights. He temporarily forgot how to speak Common, so he just got the girl's attention, and gave her a thumbs up to try and signify that he was more or less okay, and her face immediately lit up.

Julius sat for a while, and eventually remembered how to speak Common, so he got Aqui's attention. "What happened?" he asked.

"Ruby here jumped off of a Nevermore with her partner Weiss, fell probably five hundred odd feet, and landed directly on your head. If your Aura were any lower than it already was, your spine probably would've snapped and killed you instantly, or paralyzed you. You're lucky to have just gotten away with a moderate concussion, let alone your life." Aqui said, examining Julius further, before getting up. "Since you've got a concussion, it'd probably be in our best interest to head back to Beacon." Aqui said, holding her hand out to Julius. "Can you walk?" she asked.

Julius took her hand and pulled himself up, tried to take a few steps forward, and nearly fell over. "No." was all he said, and so Aqui took his right arm, set it around herself so that he could lean on her for support, and they started heading back to Beacon.

As soon as Julius and Aqui disappeared into the treeline, an Ursa came stumbling out of the forest considerably farther away from the temple, trying to get something on its back. There were bright pink flashes from behind it, and the sound of a girl squealing in glee. The Ursa reared on its legs, roared, and suddenly, another person collided with its chest at what must have been Mach Two. Whoever the unlucky sod was, they managed to penetrate the Ursa's chest, directly into its heart, killing it instantly, and the Ursa quickly fell on its back and disappeared, revealing a girl with orange hair, and a blonde guy. Soon after, Marshall, Izzy, and a guy with black hair and a single pink highlight came out of the treeline, all visibly exhausted.

The guy with the black hair leaned over and caught his breath. "Nora! Please… don't ever do that again." he said with pained breath, before looking over to where the orange haired girl was previously standing, only to not see her there, and he then started frantically looking around for her.

Izzy saw where she went. "Bloody hell, did y'see that, Marsh? Bet she'd give Julius a run for his money in a race. She might even be crazier than Aqui, now that I think about it." she said.

Marshall slung Ripper over his shoulder. "Maybe, but probably not." he said, and he started walking to the temple, Izzy in tow.

"Whaddya mean, "maybe?" She'd definitely be able to compete with them!" Izzy said, confused.

"You don't know those two like I do, Iz. If he's putting everything he's got into it, Julius could easily smoke her, and both of them are easily crazier than Nora." he said, frowning at the last bit.

Izzy stopped, and so did Marshall. "I don't follow. How're they crazier?"

"You know the story they told the cops when they came in from Moonvale?"

"Yeh, word got around pretty quick about what happened. Something about the town holding a mob snitch and getting burned down, right?"

"Yes. Julius had his parents killed right in front of him and Aqui by Torchwick, the guy that robbed the Dust store the other night. He knew where they were hiding, but didn't kill them before leaving. They immediately got their stuff to head for Vale, but first they checked Aqui's house for her parents and older sister. All they found were three roasted corpses with slash wounds and bullet holes."

"Yeesh, Marsh. That's messed up, but I don't see how that makes them any crazier than someone who rides the back of an Ursa like it's a friggin horse, while simultaneously beating it to death with a big hammer." Izzy said, slightly frustrated Marshall wasn't properly answering her questions.

Marshall's expression turned to one of fear, something incredibly rare for someone who acts as stoic and emotionless as him. "Nora's crazy like a five year old with a gun. She plays around with things she really shouldn't without understanding the possible consequences, at least immediately, before cooling off. Those two are a different breed of crazy, like a serial killer. Push the wrong buttons, and they go into a blood rage."

Izzy's eyes narrowed at Marshall. "I don't believe you."

Marshall just sighed. "Remember how when we were twelve, there was that incident at school where Harrier got put into a coma for two years, and had half the bones in his body broken?"

"Crikey, yeah, I remember. Nobody would say who did it, right?"

"Right. Julius and Aqui beat the shit out of that guy. The people who saw it happen chose not to rat them so they wouldn't be beaten within an inch of their life, plus, they probably kind of respected them for taking care of him. Even the staff kept their mouths quiet, and the school didn't even try to fight the lawsuit from his parents." Marshall said, looking at the sky.

"Where were you during all of this?"

"Me? I had front row seats."

* * *

 **FIVE YEARS AGO**

* * *

 _Marshall was headed to his locker to grab his bag and head home. The crowd of people doing the exact same thing as he was was pretty large, but as thick as it was, he could make out Aqui's distinctive hair, and where Aqui was, Julius wasn't far behind, and he wormed his way through the crowd to see if Julius was there, and lo and behold, he was, head in his locker looking for something, Aqui patiently standing by him._

" _Hey, Jules." Marshall said, casually waving to him._

" _Hey, Marsh." Julius said, poking his head out of the locker. "What's up?"_

 _Marshall leaned up against the lockers. "Did you do something to make Harrier mad? He's been looking for you."_

 _Julius seemed unconcerned. "Okay, and?"_

" _He's got his four buddies with him."_

 _Julius stopped messing around in his locker, and looked at Marshall, and then looked behind him. "You were followed." he said plainly, before poking his head back into the locker. Marshall looked behind him, and sure enough, Harrier and his gang were making their way to the trio, and the crowd was clearing themselves from their path._

" _Sorry." was all Marshall said, before Harrier loudly announced his presence._

" _Hey, Julius, I've got a bone to pick with you." he said, positioning himself directly behind Julius, so that he couldn't be ignored._

" _I didn't steal from you, if that's what you're about to ask."_

 _Harrier started laughing. "That sounds like an admission of guilt! How would you know that was what I was gonna ask you about?"_

" _Because that's what you always come after me for. I didn't steal from you, just like the last twenty times we've been through this. If you've legitimately lost something and aren't just screwing with me, a Faunus probably took it from you."_

 _Harrier stopped laughing, but still had a smirk on his face. "You've also got a habit of lyin' to us, so how am I to trust you?" he said, shrugging casually._

" _Fuck off, Harrier."_

 _Harrier chuckled. "Oooh, feisty! Cardin, spin this fool around. If he doesn't wanna admit it, I'll make him." he said, snapping his vision to his lackey. Cardin just nodded, grabbed Julius, and turned him to face Harrier._

 _Harrier immediately grabbed Aqui, who naturally tried to resist, but he managed to overpower her, and he began choking her out in front of the crowd. "Bet this'll make you confess, you rat." he taunted._

 _Julius was shocked, took a moment to consider his options, but before he could act upon them, Harrier spoke up. "You've still got a chance to save her, you know. Not like mommy and daddy dearest. All you've gotta do is confess, and we'll let her go fr-" Harrier said before being cut off._

 _Marshall blinked, and in an instant, Julius was on top of Harrier, laying punch after punch after punch into him. Harrier's gang were completely stunned, and weren't doing anything. All that echoed through the halls were Julius yelling, and Harrier screaming in pain. Aqui had landed on the floor when Julius tackled Harrier, got up, and then started laying into him as well._

 _Julius grabbed Harrier's head, and started smashing it into the tile flooring. "Don't! Talk! About! My! Fucking! Parents!" he yelled with each smash, and each smash, Harrier yelled louder and louder, before going quiet on the final smash. Julius and Aqui both got up, and then started kicking and stomping on Harrier's unconscious body. His arms and legs were practically smashed to bits, his entire body was bruised, and his jaw dislocated. When all was said and done, and the reality of the situation finally set in for Julius and Aqui, they started trembling, and fell to their knees._

* * *

 **(A/N: Play Lurking from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)**

* * *

 _Marshall was in shock. Harrier definitely had it coming, but he never in a million years expected Julius to be the one to do it, much less for it to be so…brutal. He looked at Harrier's bruised, unconscious body, which now had small pools of blood beginning to pool around it. He then looked at Harrier's gang. All of them were staring in either fear or shock, before they ran away, probably to get a teacher. Marshall then looked at Julius, who was looking at his bloodied hands. He wasn't making any noises or anything. Just staring. Soon enough, a teacher came, screamed, called for paramedics, and then hauled Aqui and Julius off to the principal's office._

* * *

 **PRESENT DAY**

* * *

Izzy covered her mouth, and her eyes widened in surprise. "Marsh, that's horrible! For you to willingly associate with someone who would do tha…" she said, stopping herself short when Marshall turned around, and stared at her.

"Harrier had it coming for a long time. You of all people should know that. If it hadn't been those two, it would have been someone else, maybe even you, but that's beside the point. You're acting like they randomly go out and beat people within an inch of their life. They don't. To get them like they were when they put Harrier into the coma, you have to seriously anger them, or actively threaten one of them in the other's presence and simultaneously insult them. They've tempered themselves a lot since then, anyways." he said, turning back around. "We're here."

Marshall and Izzy headed up the steps to the temple. There was already a crowd of people, but Marshall paid them no mind. Instead, he immediately checked the relics. "Pawn, definitely not… King… unlikely… Knight, probably not…" Marshall mumbled to himself. He kept looking over the artifacts, until he noticed that one of the Spade cards was missing. The Ace. "Bingo." he said to himself, grabbing an Ace of Clubs.

Izzy just looked at the crowd of people at the temple, but one in particular stood out to her. A girl with long, black hair and a black bow. She sniffed the air.

" _Cat Faunus."_ she thought to herself, as the girl with the bow looked at her, and narrowed her eyes.

Suddenly, there was a loud roar, and then a Death Stalker came out of the treeline, tearing down trees and chasing after a red haired girl. Izzy almost immediately recognized her as the one who was being chased by the Death Stalker earlier. Everyone at the temple immediately took some sort of combat stance, and, sure enough, everyone was almost immediately deafened by the sound of Marshall unloading Ripper into the Death Stalker, tracer fire visible, but doing no damage. The girl with the short red hair pulled out her weapon, a giant scythe, and used it to propel herself into the Death Stalker for an attack, but it blocked her with its giant claws, and knocked her to the ground. She picked herself back up, stared at the Death Stalker, and fired a shot, before backing up, holstering her scythe, and then running. The blonde looked like she was yelling, but was drowned out by Ripper. The blonde chased after her, and then a loud bird screech rang out, being able to drown out even Ripper.

"Nevermore!" Izzy shouted, before heading to the trees to get out of the giant bird's sight. The massive bird was chasing after the girl with the scythe, and she was running for her life.

Marshall just aimed Ripper skywards, and depressed the trigger, pelting the Nevermore with more tracers than the Death Stalker, but the giant bird was practically unbothered. "You gotta be fucking kidding." Marshall said under his breath.

The Nevermore stopped chasing her, reared itself up, and then launched giant feathers at the girl as if they were projectiles. Most of them missed, but one hit the girl right in her cape, pinning her in place. The blonde was also trapped by the giant feathers, and the Death Stalker moved in for the kill, but suddenly, there was a white blur, and the Death Stalker's stinger was frozen, with a girl in a white dress standing in front of it. She walked off, and then the blonde went and hugged the girl with the cape.

Around this time, Ripper finally ran dry, but the Nevermore fled, so Marshall didn't need to worry about cover for the time being.

* * *

Marshall headed back to the group with a freshly loaded Ripper. He had only brought four box magazines of ammunition, and this was his second to last box. Izzy wasn't anywhere to be found. Everyone in the group was pretty much all just standing around nervously, not saying anything, so Marshall broke the silence.

"The Nevermore's gone for now. What're we gonna do about the Death Stalker? That ice ain't gonna hold forever."

The girl with black hair looked thoughtful for a minute. "Death Stalkers have weakspots at specific joints on their arms and tail. Maybe we could freeze the limbs, use explosives to blow them off, and then attack the soft tissue inside."

Their battle planning was interrupted by the Nevermore screaming again. The blonde kid looked up, and pointed at the sky. "Guys, that thing's circling back around. What're we gonna do?"

The girl in the white dress walked up behind him. "Look, there's no sense in dilly-dallying. Our objective is right in front of us."

The girl with red hair piped up. "She's right, our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the cliffs." She said, pointing back towards Beacon. "There's no point in fighting these things."

The blonde kid smiled. "Run and live, that is an idea I can get behind."

Marshall scoffed as everyone who didn't have a relic went to grab one. "None of us are going to make it if that Nevermore's still around, you know."

Everyone practically ignored his valid input, and the girl with the red hair motioned for the group to move. "Let's go."

Marshall sighed, and followed, waiting for them to inevitably be attacked by the Nevermore.

* * *

" _Six, are you sure you're going the right way?"_ Allie asked.

"Positive." Six responded.

" _Are you sure?"_

"Yes."

Six looked up at the sky, and saw stormclouds brewing. "Looks like it's gonna rain. Should probably be there in a half an hour.

" _That's what you said half an hour ago."_

"Too bad."

* * *

Marshall and the rest of the group headed near a large ravine, and sure enough, they were being tailed by the Nevermore.

"I told you we'd get followed!" Marshall yelled, and everyone took cover behind a bunch of fallen pillars, and the Nevermore landed on a tower in the distance.

"Well, that's great!" the blonde girl yelled, and as if it were on cue, the Death Stalker burst through the treeline.

"Aw, man, run!" the blonde kid yelled, and everyone fled further up the hill.

The Nevermore screamed again, and launched another flurry of feathers at the group, but was met with return fire from Nora's grenade launcher. Marshall took this as his cue to lay down suppressing fire with Ripper, and the Nevermore was being pelted by a nonstop flurry of explosive attacks and .50 cal tracer fire.

The Death Stalker came up behind the pair to strike, but was attacked by the girl with black hair, and Ren, who performed an X-slash across its face that predictably did nothing. The girl in the white dress jumped down from the high ground, place a glyph under Nora, herself, and Marshall, and launched them further ahead with the rest of the group. They all ran for their lives across the bridge, but the Nevermore made its presence known again, and came in for a second run. This time, instead of doing any normal attacks, it rammed itself right into the bridge as everyone was crossing it.

Marshall's senses were dulled by the impact, but even then, he could feel he was falling down the ravine. He felt like this was the end, but suddenly, someone grabbed his hand. Marshall opened his eyes, and saw Izzy.

"Not today, big guy!" she said, smiling. "Look, I can't pull you up on my own. You're gonna have to sling yourself up."

Marshall nodded, and Izzy began swinging him to the left.

"Three…"

"Two…"

"One!" she yelled, swinging Marshall to the left as far as she could, before letting him go. He managed to launch himself onto the stone bridge, and Izzy felt like she could rest significantly easier now, provided she could ignore the Death Stalker behind her, and the Nevermore. She turned around, and joined Nora and a blonde kid.

"So, how're we gonna get over there? I can't exactly make that jump." the blonde kid said, peering over the edge. Nora got an evil grin, knocked the blonde kid and Izzy back, and then turned her grenade launcher into a hammer, before smashing it into the ground, launching Izzy, the blonde, and Marshall over to the other side of the ravine, and then she launched herself.

Izzy managed to land on her feet, Marshall landed on top of the Death Stalker, and the blonde went somewhere they couldn't see. Nora smashed her hammer into the Death Stalker, with minimal concern for Marshall's wellbeing, stunning him momentarily. Marshall finally managed to get up, and he managed to make his way to the front of the Death Stalker. He balled his hand into a fist, and then jammed it into one of the Death Stalker's eyes, and ripped it from its socket, exposing the soft tissue.

"There! The soft tissue is exposed! Magdump into the eye socket and you'll hit the brain!" Marshall yelled, and Izzy was the first one to respond by firing an explosive arrow from Crescent Fang into the socket. A moment passed, and then there was an explosion from the Death Stalker, before it fell to the ground, dead.

Everyone was stunned. "We did it!" the girl with the red cape yelled, but her celebration was cut short by the Nevermore's screams.

"Not yet!" Marshall yelled as he hopped off of the Death Stalker, and he flipped a switch on Ripper's left side. The three barrels retreated back into the receiver, a hatch appeared on the back, and a new, significantly larger and non-rifled barrel came out of the front. Marshall pulled off his backpack, and pulled out a giant tank shell. He opened the hatch on Ripper, inserted the shell, and made sure everything was okay, before picking Ripper up. He looked around for the Nevermore, saw it, and slowly took aim.

The Nevermore was flying straight at them, and he only had one shot. He _had_ to make it count. He slowly pulled the trigger, fully depressing it just as the Nevermore opened its mouth to scream again.

Suddenly, a loud explosion rang out. Marshall was knocked back several feet, and the Nevermore was still gliding towards them.

Keyword being _was._

It took a moment, but the Nevermore started fading away, as did the Death Stalker.

Everyone cheered. Marshall just held Ripper over his back, and started walking back towards Beacon.

* * *

 **THREE HOURS AFTER DROP**

* * *

 _"You're lost, Six. Admit it."_

"No."

" _Admit. It."_

"No."

Allie sighed. " _Why are you so stubborn?"_

"Because we're here." Six said, pointing at a rather large ruined stone structure.

" _Are you sure this is the place, and not one of the three others we found that were empty?"_

"Yeah, I see bullet casings all over the floor. People were here recently." Six said, and he started walking towards the temple.

When he got there, Six examined the pedestals.

" _Wow, they're all empty. Big surprise."_

"I haven't even checked all of them yet, Allie. Relax."

Allie just huffed. She did have a point, though. All of the pedestals were devoid of relics. Six kept looking.

Then, he saw something that made his artificial heart stop beating for a moment. A platinum poker chip.

Six just stared at the chip. He knew it probably wasn't THE platinum chip, but the fact remained that this couldn't have been a coincidence. The entire reason he became Courier Six was **BECAUSE** of that damned chip. There being a platinum chip as a relic for Beacon's Initiation had to have been something premeditated, Six was sure of it.

Allie interrupted Six's train of thought by appearing in front of the pedestal. " _Six, your heartrate is skyrocketing. What's wrong?"_ she asked, genuinely concerned.

"Look behind you." was all he said.

She did so, and all she let out was a soft "oh." when she saw the chip. She turned back to Six. _"If this is too offputting to you, we could pull out now, and try finding our way back somewhere else."_

"No. Beacon's our best lead." he said, grabbing the chip, and slipping it into his duster.

" _Six, roll right!"_ Allie suddenly shouted, and Six did so almost instinctively. There was a loud crash, and Six saw a large black mass where he had just been standing. The mass got up on two legs, and turned to face Six, before it started growling. Six was reasonably sure this was a Beowolf, but something was different about this one. It looked physically taller than the one he had seen in Moonvale. The skull mask looked more imposing and detailed in comparison to the other one despite being partially broken, and there were more bony protrusions on the arms and legs. There were also multiple slash marks around its body, and one of the hands was missing. "This one looks like an Alpha of some kind." Six said quietly.

Six drew Sweet Revenge, and started circling the interior of the ruin, and the Alpha did the same. Six wasn't intent on making the first move, though. He was incredibly patient, definitely more patient than this Alpha.

They circled each other for about a minute, and sure enough, Six won out, and the Beowolf attacked first by leaping at Six. Six ducked under, aimed Sweet Revenge at the underside of the Alpha's head, and fired. The bullet clearly impacted the Alpha's head, and it let out a loud howl, but when it landed in the grass, it just got back up, rubbed the underside of its head, and turned back to face Six, growling even more fiercely than before. The Alpha didn't give him a moment to process the situation, and it leapt at him a second time, this time pinning him to the ground and knocking Sweet Revenge away from him.

Six struggled to push the Alpha off of him, but it roared in his face, and punched him in the chest several times. When it stopped, Six looked up to see the Alpha about to smash his skull in. He tried resisting, but to no avail. When the fist started coming down, Six closed his eyes and braced for the end, it never came.

Instead, six gunshots rang out. It took a moment to process for Six, but they sounded like gunshots from a Remington 1858, the same gun Sweet Revenge is. He opened his eyes, and saw the Alpha slide off of him. A man in a duster and cowboy hat with a bandana and goggles came over and shot the Beowolf several more times with his weapon, a Remington 1858 that looked _exactly_ like Sweet Revenge, before the Alpha faded away. It took Six a minute to process who this was.

"Randall?"

* * *

 **(A/N: Play A Soldier's Honor from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)**

* * *

The man chuckled. "Looks like it's me saving your ass this time, Six."

Six was confused. "But.. how? Marko killed you, I saw it with my own eye."

Randall chuckled again. "I'm not exactly alive. You've still got your AI girlfriend, right?" he asked offering Six his hand to pull him up, which Six took.

"Yeah, but…" Six said, but he was cut off by Randall.

"Good." was all he said, before Six felt Randall's grip loosen, and he was no longer there.

Six just stared at where Randall was standing barely five seconds ago. Six suddenly felt like a ton of old wounds had just been opened and had salt poured in them. First, a platinum poker chip as a relic, and now Randall coming back from the grave to save his hide, only to go right back in.

Six leaned up against one of the pedestals, and held his head. Allie appeared in front of him. _"Hey, Six?"_ she asked quietly.

"Yeah?"

" _That platinum chip got me thinking about something. Julius said that Aqui's semblance lets her see physical and mental injuries, right?"_

"Yeah, what about it?"

" _She probably knows everything that you've been through."_

Six just sighed, stood up, grabbed Sweet Revenge, and headed back to Beacon, just as it started raining.

* * *

 **BEACON AMPHITHEATER**

 **2:15 PM**

* * *

Ozpin tapped Six on the shoulder to get his attention. "Excuse me, Nax? A moment of your time, if you would."

Six turned around to face him. "Yeah, something you need?"

"Team assignment is starting in a few minutes, however, you returned with a relic that had no equivalent we could use to pair you up. This means that you will have no teammates for the duration of your time here at Beacon aside from Allie. I trust that you'll be okay with this? If not, I can have you assigned to an existing team, should you prefer that."

Six thought about it for a minute. "Nah, I'm fine with being on my own. I'm more than used to it by now, anyways. Having other people around that I barely know would be weird for me."

"I see. Fair enough, then." Ozpin said, before turning away. "Actually, one more thing. I saw what happened when you retrieved the Platinum Chip relic. Your response was… not usual for most students. I've never seen someone react like that to a relic at Initiation." Ozpin said as he turned his head so that he could look at Six out of the corner of his eye. "It's something very personal to you, I presume?"

Six just nodded.

"Then keep it. Glynda will show you to your dorm so that you know where it is, after which, you will be free to roam the campus until curfew."

Glynda suddenly appeared beside Ozpin. "Follow me, please." she said, motioning for Six to come along.

* * *

 **BEACON DORMS**

 **2:25 PM**

* * *

Glynda stopped by a door in the hallway of the dorm building. "This room here is your dorm, Room 224. The teams you will have as neighbors are RWBY, JNPR, and JAMI in rooms 221, 222, and 223, respectively. Inside, you will find standard amenities and utilities you would expect an entity like Beacon to provide its students, plus extra. Any questions?"

"Yeah, 'extra'? What's that mean?" Six asked.

"To my understanding, it means that Ozpin has had extra clothing provided for you. Any further questions?"

"No."

Glynda pulled out a keyring, and offered it to Six. "Here are your keys." she said, dropping them in his hands and walking off.

Six entered the dorm, and what he saw was about what he expected. There was one main combined living/sleeping area with a king sized bed on the left, a large cabinet directly across from the bed with a television on top, a desk and chair in the corner on the left side of the room, a locker directly next to the desk, and an exit to the balcony, plus several cardboard boxes next to the bed. There were also two additional rooms flanking the door, one being a walk-in closet, and the other being a bathroom.

Six just sat his duffel bag on the floor, and checked the boxes. Inside were multiple sets of clean clothes. Two looked like school uniforms, and some more casual clothes. Six just set the clothes back inside of the boxes, and went over to the desk and sat down. He pulled out the platinum chip to look over it again, and Allie appeared and sat on the desk.

" _Do you think it's the Platinum Chip?"_ Allie asked.

Six rubbed his thumb over the surface of the chip. "Maybe." he said as he continued rubbing the surface.

" _What're you looking for?"_

"A bump. I've looked over the technical documents for the Platinum Chip, and House had it made so that there was a small bump on one side of the chip that cold be pushed down on to cause the chip to split into two pieces if something was ever wrong with it. If this IS the Platinum Chip, then the bump'll be here." he said, continuing to feel around. His thumb eventually stopped, felt around a small area, and then a small _click_ was heard. The chip split in two, revealing small computer parts inside, marked with the symbol of the Lucky 38, and the RobCo logo.

Six suddenly felt a pit develop in his stomach. It WAS the Platinum Chip. It being here left no doubt in Six's mind that this wasn't a coincidence. That only left one question, though. _Why_ was the Platinum Chip here?

Six held his head in his hands and tried to come up with an explanation, and Allie just put her hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. _"I'm sure you'll find a way for us to get back, Six."_

Six took his helmet off, pulled out one of the whiskey bottles from his duster, and took a swig. "We will." he said, giving her a cocky smile.

* * *

 **BEACON AMPHITHEATER**

 **4:45 PM  
**

* * *

Julius, Aqui, Marshal, and Izzy all walked up to the Amphitheater's stage to be assigned to their team. Ozpin turned to face the four of them.

"Julius Agilis. Aqui Blueheart. Marshall Adrin. Izzy Ferizini. The four of you retrieved the Ace playing cards. From this day forward, you will work together as team JAMI, led by Julius Agilis." he said, and there was thunderous applause. Julius and Marshall gave Ozpin a salute, and Aqui hugged Julius.

"As if there were any doubt." Julius said, before taking his team offstage and back into the crowd.

The next group of students came on stage, a bunch of guys in big, heavy armor. They all formed a row, and Ozpin started speaking.

"Russel Thrush. Cardin Winchester. Dove Bronzewing. Sky Lark."

Julius' blood froze. _"Harrier's gang?"_ he thought to himself.

"The four of you retrieved the Black Bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as team CRDL, led by Cardin Winchester." There was applause, but it was clearly much quieter compared to every other new team.

Team CRDL stepped off stage, and the next group came up. Before they were even on stage, Ozpin started speaking. "Jaune Arc. Lie Ren. Pyrrha Nikos. Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the White Rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as team JNPR." Ozpin hadn't even finished talking, and he saw that Nora was hugging Ren. "Led by… Jaune Arc." Ozpin continued. Jaune was clearly taken by surprise. "Congratulations, young man." Ozpin said, and Pyrrha playfully punched Jaune in the shoulder, knocking him over, which lead to everyone laughing. Team JNPR walked off stage.

"And finally, Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the White Knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as team RWBY, lead by… Ruby Rose."

Yang almost immediately tackled Ruby with a bear hug as soon as the applause started. "I'm so proud of you!" she yelled.

"Looks like things are shaping up to be an… interesting year." Ozpin said.

* * *

 **BEACON DORMS**

 **9:20 PM**

* * *

Six was sitting at his desk when he heard a knock at the door.

"Door's open." he yelled, looking back to see who would come in. It was Aqui.

"Hey, Nax." she said shyly.

Allie appeared next to her. _"Hey, Aqui. We were actually gonna talk to you about something."_ she said. Aqui was taken aback.

"Oh, really?"

Six spoke up. "Yeah. Take a seat." he said, and Aqui sat on the bed. Six turned to face her. "So, Allie and I were thinking, when I had finally woken up after you were trying to stabilize me, you and Julius mentioned my Aura being locked. When Julius was explaining your Semblances, he said yours enables you to see physical AND mental trauma."

Aqui looked worried. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Is viewing mental trauma involuntary for you, or do you have to actively look into it?" Six asked, dead serious.

Aqui broke eye contact with Six and hid her face behind her hair. "It's… involuntary. I can't choose whether I want to see someone's mental trauma when healing them or not."

Six paused for a moment. "How much do you know?"

Aqui was silent.

"Aqui…" Six said.

Aqui hung her head. "All of it. From Goodsprings, to Nipton, to Vegas and beyond. I know about Randall. I know about the Platinum Chip, and House. I even know about Frosthill, Marko, and Sergio. I know that you don't belong here, too. You've lived a terrible life, and been through so much worse than Julius and I ever have, yet you handle it with such grace, like it doesn't even bother you despite everything saying that it should." she said, holding back tears. "It's terrible."

Six laid back in his chair. "So, you know my secret. What are you going to do with it?"

Aqui looked up at Six, tears streaming down her face. "Nothing. I'd never tell anyone about the trauma the people I heal have gone through, unless they wanted me to. You're no exception. I won't tell anyone, not even Julius. Swear on my heart."

"So, outside this room, I'm a bounty hunter from Vacuo who managed to get into Beacon, nothing more, nothing less. Got that?"

"Got it."

"Good, you should probably head back to your team, now." Six said, dismissing Aqui. When she left the room, he let out a sigh, and buried his face in his hands. "Jesus tapdancing Christ, that's the last thing I need right now. Someone knowing I'm not supposed to be here at all."

Six killed the light, and went to get changed for bed.

* * *

Six slowly stirred awake. It was still dark outside, so he checked the alarm clock by the side of the bed.

11:15 PM.

Six looked to his left, and saw Allie's hologram sleeping right beside him, smiling peacefully. There was a faint light coming from the room's doorway, and Six slowly got out of bed so as to not wake Allie. Six heard footsteps passing by, and waited until he was sure the source was past the door before peaking out. When he did peak into the hallway, though, Six saw a familiar figure in an all too familiar checkered suit.

" _Benny."_ Six thought to himself. He slowly crept through the halls, tailing Benny, until Benny turned a corner, and a bright light shined from behind it. When Six turned the corner to confront Benny, though, all he saw was Benny next to a doorway that lead to a white void.

Benny lit a cigarette with his lighter. "Glad to see you're still kicking, kid. Guess we can add 'The Second Apocalypse' to the list of things that can't put you in the grave, right next to me, the Madre, Big Mountain, the Divide, Marko, Lanius, and General Nepotism. Surprised you haven't been cashed out yet."

Six was wary. "How're you still alive? I plugged your ass full of lead three years ago."

Benny let out a puff of smoke, and then shrugged. "I'm not alive. I've got orders to bring you through this doorway, though."

"What if I don't want to?" Six asked, and he suddenly heard the sound of guns being drawn. He looked around him, and saw everyone he had made enemies with. Kimball, Oliver, Brookshire, Marko, Ulysses, Lanius, Elijah.

Boone.

"Very persuasive." Six commented, before heading through the doorway.

When he got through, Six noted that the white void looked remarkably similar to Heaven, from the out of body experience he had last night.

Six looked around to see if he could see Jesus anywhere. He didn't, so he turned around to face the now-closed doorway. Behind where the doorway was a single figure sitting down. Half of it was chalk white, and the other was midnight black.

All Six could say was "Who the hell are you?"

* * *

 **THAT'S THE END OF THE FUCKING CHAPTER HOOOOOOOOOOO** _ **BOI**_ **THAT WAS UNNECESSARILY PAINFUL TO WRITE**

 **So, clarification time for shit.**

 **Harrier was the "Alpha Male" of Cardin's group before he got the shit beat out of him by Aqui and Julius. In essence, he is responsible for CRDL being a bunch of insufferable mongoloid degenerates.**

 **Aqui knowing who Six is was the result of me going "oh yeah, that's a fucking plothole if I never bring this up, better fix it"**

 **The thing with Harrier getting the shit beaten out of him is the first showing of a change I'm making to RWBY, where someone's emotional state can have an impact on how they perform and they effectiveness of their melee attacks and whatnot. This is important for the Battle of Beacon bits of RWBY, especially the ones involving Torchwick.**

 **I cut the entire Death Stalker/Nevermore fight in half because I really didn't want to write out the whole fucking thing while having Izzy and Marshall being completely goddamn worthless. The thing Marshall shot the Nevermore with was a 120mm M829 SABOT round. I can't help but feel the fight was just really poorly written on my end too, cause I suck ass at big fuck off action sequences. I'm more of a fan of the "Twin Suns" style of fights where it's quick, clean, and effective.**

' **Till next time.**

 **-Tweak**


	9. Tuskbreaker

**So, there's something important I want to say.**

 **As of writing (September 8** **th** **, 2018), I am deleting the original Grimm Retreat story.**

 **Why?**

 **Because I feel like this version of the story has completely and thoroughly thrashed the original. The rewrite is objectively higher quality than the original, and the original being as bad as it is while also having the name Grimm Retreat would imply it was more deserving of that name, whereas the rewrite would have a big fat [REWRITE] stamped over the title in bold red letters, like it would be inferior or something. As such, this story is no longer Grim Retreat Rewrite, it IS Grimm Retreat. The original is gone for good, and I have zero intentions of posting it again. I don't want that shit ruining the name of this version. Also, I've updated the cover art to use the elite riot gear helmet instead of that NCR veteran ranger mod from Fallout 4.**

 **Now that my dumb meme blogpost is out of the way, S**

 **To Willum: Nope. The Chip is proprietary, with there only being two areas in the Mojave which carry the necessary hardware to work with it, so Six using it to fuck with Paladins is completely out of the question. Besides that, the formats between the Chip and Paladins would be so completely different the chip might just explode. On the other hand, though, Allie could probably override a Paladin if she can interface with it, since she's an AI designed for use with infiltration suits, and would eventually be able to figure out how to control one. The problem is, you know, actually interfacing with the things.**

 **To Constipated Genius: Aqui knowing about Six is going to be an important plot point for the arc that focuses on him. As for the bit about calibers, yea, I get where you're coming from. I understand that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for instruments of rapid lead poisoning (which would make my job easier if they were but, y'know, "guns r bad" or some shit like that). It might help if you learn to associate specific calibers with specific guns, for example, you associate 5.56x45 with the M4 and M16 family of rifles, 7.62x39 with the AKM, 12.7x99 with the Browning M2, and so on and so forth.**

 **To NaturalBornK: No, I'm minimizing references to the DLC characters like Joshua Graham and Ulysses. I don't want to constrain myself accidentally and find out what I wrote down actually isn't possible for when I write the prequel story. The Think Tank are currently the only exception to this rule so far, they were obviously alive and working for Six before the blowout happened.**

 **To JDDB0BBY: Literally just wait 10-20 years and we will have AI anime girls with personalities that help you in your day to day. The existence of Japan fucking guarantees it.**

 **To Rio Skyron: Boone turning on Six is a result of 1. Six going for the Independent Ending, and 2. the end result of Lonesome Road. Basically, prior to New Vegas Bounties 3, when Six decided to go with Yes Man instead of the NCR, he was more or less ambivalent towards the NCR. Come New Vegas Bounties 3, when Brookshire fucks you over with Marko, Six did a full 180 on his opinion of the NCR and fucking** _ **hates**_ **them. Not like he doesn't have any reason not to, he literally got maimed, buried alive, had his mentor killed right in front of him, and saw an entire town slaughtered because of the NCR. So as a result, once NVB 3 was done, and Brookshire was properly tortured to death (very fucking slowly, might I add), Six goes home, fucks off to Big Mountain for more cybernetics, comes back, and gets Ulysses' message, Lonesome Road happens, Six, without missing a fucking** _ **beat**_ **to shit on the NCR for what they did to him, nukes both them and the Legion. After Hoover Dam, Boone connects the dots, realizes what Six did, and turns on him. Not in a "I am going to pull out my weapon and start shooting" way, but rather a "I absolutely despise what you've done and want to kill you, but I respect you enough to not just murder you in the streets, so let's settle this with a one on one fight", where they have an Enemy at the Gates style sniper duel that Six just** _ **barely**_ **wins.**

 **By the way, the order of the major content is Vanilla up to The House Always Wins, II with New Vegas Bounties quests sprinkled throughout, then Dead Money, after which, The House Always Wins, III and IV, V comes around and Six kills House because he doesn't want to betray Veronica, Yes Man is installed and Six busts his ass to broker a peace between Vegas and the Brotherhood, then the next several months are filled with Six focusing on NVB 2, then going to Utah for Honest Hearts, coming back and doing some odd jobs and brainstorming how to unfuck the rest of the Mojave after Hoover Dam happens, Old World Blues happens, when Six gets back (with Allie), he finds out someone's been spreading rumors that he needs to "Go where it all began." which he quickly deduces means Randall and Associates. Cue New Vegas Bounties 3, Six comes out of it with more trauma than ever before and with a hateboner for the NCR. Time passes, Ulysses sends his message, Lonesome Road happens, Legion and NCR get nuked, some more time passes, Kimball arrives at Hoover Dam,** **Six lets him die because fuck the NCR, Six was willing to take the loss in caps as long as he fucked the NCR. The next day, the battle breaks out, Six easily fucks up both sides, fights Lanius in melee combat, which he wins, and then has Oliver executed, but not before handing a partially revised withdrawal order to one of the rangers, who draws the short stick and delivers it to Moore. There, that's a pretty basic rundown of what happened in the Mojave, at least until I can shit out the prequel story.**

 **And yes, a prequel story focusing on New Vegas exclusively is happening, near the end of Grimm Retreat, or when I finish it. It'll be done alongside a playthrough, which I may or may not have prematurely started. Oops. I'm recording each session, by the way, so it won't go to waste. Although, the file sizes for the sessions are fucking stupidly large (thanks shadowplay) so I'd rather not sit on them for too long. To give you an idea of what I mean, an hour and 40 minutes of footage is 25 fucking gigabytes.**

 **I almost forgot to mention something, Six's dorm doesn't look like the Beacon dorms do, rather, it looks more like one of the hotel rooms from the first level of the Dead Center campaign from Left 4 Dead 2.**

 **On with the story.**

* * *

 **(A/N: Put the song "Ghost" from WoW on a loop for this segment.)**

* * *

The figure smiled at Six. "We're offended that you don't recognize us, Courier Six." it said in a voice that sounded like two voices, a higher pitched one, and a deep one, layered on top of each other, before it transformed into an amorphous blob, which then reshaped into Jesus. "Does this form look familiar to you?" it asked.

Six was disturbed. "Ignoring the fact that that is completely and utterly disgusting to watch, you still haven't answered my question. Who, or what, are you?"

The figure sighed, and transformed back into the twin-shaded form. "Put simply, we are, or were, the masters of the universe. We have been called by many names by your kind throughout our existence. Allah, The Holy Trinity, Zeus, and Atom are just some examples. The current favorite seems to be the Deity Brothers, however." it said.

"Deity Brothers? I only see one of you, and 'were'? What's that mean?" Six asked, still confused.

The figure sighed, and began to split into two. The result was two humanoid figures, one being full black, and another was fully white with black shadows around it.

"We are, or were, the Deity Brothers." the white one said, despite not having a visible mouth.

The black one spoke up. "We're fragments of the original Brothers. They've long since left Remnant to its own devices, for reasons we can't remember."

Six cocked his head to the side. "Fragments? In what way?"

The white one looked at him. "We are fragmented like your mind is fragmented. We do not have the power, or all memories of the Brothers, only bits and pieces, much like how you only remember bits and pieces of your life before you were shot in the head, Courier Six."

Six thought about that for a second. "Hang on, was that you guys giving me that vision the other night?" he asked. They both nodded, and Six sighed. "Well, after you gave me that vision and I woke up, Allie was bawling her eyes out, thinking I was dying. Is that happening right now?"

The white one slowly turned its head to face the black one. "Was it necessary to do it this time, Brother?"

The black one put its hand behind the back of its head and started rubbing. "Sorry about that, it's been a _long_ time since we've had a chance to talk with anyone even vaguely familiar with Christianity, I might have gone a _little_ overboard." it said, giving a sheepish smile.

The white one sighed, and snapped its fingers. "Sorry, my Brother tends to be a bit dramatic when we need to meddle with the lives of mortals. I've fixed the issue. Your ancilla won't be having a mental breakdown anytime soon."

Six looked at them both. "So, is there any reason you're talking to me again in your true forms, rather than just using Jesus?"

The black one looked at Six. "We came to the realization that being cryptic wasn't exactly the best way to convince you to help save Remnant, much less using the icons of a religion you stopped believing in past sixteen, so we're coming clean and being straight with you."

Six stayed quiet.

The white one stood up. "You see, we knew more about the situation than we initially let on."

"No shit." Six said flippantly, not particularly caring that he was talking to gods.

"The threat to Remnant currently threatens the Kingdom of Vale. While we doubt anything will be able to stop the destruction of the Kingdom, we do know that after that point, the threat can be stopped. How is currently unknown to us, but we know there is something that CAN be used to stop the threat."

"So, after Vale falls, what's the scale of the threat then?"

"If the threat continues unchecked, the entire planet will be overrun with Grimm, and Humanity will be extinct." the black one said.

Six let that sink in for a minute. "Christ hopping on a goddamn pogo stick, those are some pretty high stakes." he said, surprised that that was how much was at risk here. "So, if you're being honest with me now, can you tell me more about that riddle I was given last time?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We believe that the result of that riddle would be better felt for you if you figured it out for yourself, rather than having us tell you."

Six sighed. "Fine, whatever. I'll stop pressing it, then. Moving on, why was the Platinum Chip a relic for Initiation? Did one of you put it there?"

The black one raised its hand. "I did, actually. I'm not entirely sure about the specifics of why, but I know for a fact that the Chip will come in handy for you again. I put it there knowing full well you would be the one who would take it, regardless of your personal feelings on it."

Six looked at the white figure. "Alright, final question. When I got pinned by that Beowolf Alpha and it was about to crush my skull, Randall came and killed it, but he's been dead for about three years. What gives?"

The white figured looked at the black one, and then back to Six. "That was your semblance. To elaborate on what I mean, people are able to leave an imprint of sorts on their weapons, more or less giving them their own spirits, complete with the memories of the owner. Your semblance appears to be able to tap into that imprint, and manifest them as physical spirits to defend yourself with, a rather unique semblance, I must say. Only about fifty others in the history of Remnant have been able to do that."

The black one clapped its hands together. "Right, I think we've taken enough of his time as it is, Brother. Off you go, now." it said, shooing Six away from the plane of reality they were currently on.

* * *

 **BEACON DORMS**

* * *

Six heard an alarm ringing, and slowly opened his eyes to check what time it was.

7:50. Six had heard some people talking yesterday about how classes start at nine. He was about to get out of bed and get ready, but then he noticed an arm wrapped around him. Six rolled over in bed, and saw Allie hugging him tightly, smiling. Obviously, Six didn't feel anything, but he honestly thought it was kind of cute. "Hey, Allie, wake up." he said softly.

Allie slowly opened her eyes, blinked a couple times, and then yawned. _"What time is it?"_ she asked.

"7:50. I've gotta get ready for classes, wanted to wake you up before I left, though." Six said as he got out of the bed and headed for the bathroom.

Allie sat up. _"Six… you had another vision, didn't you?"_ she asked, and Six stopped at the doorway.

"Yeah."

" _What happened this time?"_

Six turned to look at her. "Well, for starters, none of the Old World religions got the whole "God" thing right. God's actually apparently two brothers, or something to that effect, the 'Great Threat' to Remnant threatens the very survival of humanity, the Platinum Chip is somehow relevant to all of this, and I can tap into the spirits of people's guns and summon them or something." he said, looking at her.

Allie just looked confused, and Six sighed. "I'll explain it to you while I'm getting my shower. I'd rather not take longer than I need to." he said, as he headed into the bathroom.

* * *

 **8:13 AM**

* * *

Six stepped out of the bathroom in the Beacon uniform, and saw Allie sitting on the desk, reading something. Six whistled to get her attention, and she looked up from whatever she was reading. "Hey, Allie, I just remembered something. Did I ever install that limb control system for the suit?" he asked, and she looked at the suit, which was set up against the right wall, before disappearing. Suddenly, Six's suit started moving on its own, before it gave him a thumbs up. "Good, I'm more comfortable with the idea of you using the suit to move around instead of just sitting in here on your own."

Allie nodded, before grabbing something off of the cabinet and handing it to Six. _"Almost forgot to tell you, this thing's been transmitting partially encrypted information all night that I almost instantly picked up on. I took the liberty of keeping tabs on what it was sending and receiving, and from what I can tell, it's a communications device."_

Six pulled the two metal tabs on it apart, revealing a transparent glass screen, and it soon lit up with a bunch of logos and icons. Six fiddled with it, before pushing the tabs back together. "I'll screw with it later. C'mon, let's get going." he said, opening the door and motioning for Allie to follow him into the hallway.

Six immediately noticed that JAMI's dorm now had their symbol on it, which was an Ouroboros. JNPR and RWBY's dorms also had symbols on them, with JNPR's being a medieval looking shield, and RWBY's being a rose. Six then noticed his door had a symbol of his helmet with Allie's scarf on it. They all looked vaguely like holograms, despite there not being any visible electronics or projectors on the door.

Huh.

Six started down the hall, but heard a door open behind him. He looked back and saw Julius and Aqui heading out of their dorm. Julius noticed Six, and rushed to catch up with him, Aqui in tow. "Hey, Nax! Glad to see you passed Initiation!" he said, not realizing he was talking to Allie.

Allie just looked at him. _"Julius, I'm not Nax, he's just letting me use his armor to move around instead of just having me sit in the dorm."_ she said, looking at Julius. Allie pointed to Six. _"THAT's Nax."_

Julius looked at Allie, and then at Six, and then back again, before slapping his hand against his forehead "I'm such an idiot." he said, obviously disappointed in himself, before he moved up to Six to talk with him, and Aqui took his place.

"So, Nax, you passed Initiation. Who's team did you get put on?"

"Nobody's."

Julius smiled, and jokingly punched Six in the shoulder. "Nice joke, Nax."

Six looked at him. "I'm not joking."

Julius stopped smiling. "Wait, you're not?"

"No, Ozpin told me something about there being an odd number of students, and gave me a choice to either join a team as the fifth member, or be on my own. Obviously, I chose being on my own."

"Why?"

Six shrugged. "Dunno, I'm just used to it, I guess."

"You know I would have let you join my te-" Julius said, before they both slammed into someone, and were knocked to the ground.

* * *

 **(A/N: Play The Red Suns theme from Initial D: First Stage.)**

* * *

"Watch where you're going, jackasses!" Six heard someone yell. He looked up, and saw a guy who was about 6'6" with light brown hair and blue eyes standing over them.

Julius sat up, and looked up to the guy. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to walk…" he said, before stopping himself short.

The guy looked down at Julius, blinked a few times, and then he started laughing. "Oh, look who it is, guys! It's Aqui and Julius, the orphans who put Harrier into a coma! Ain't this a nice little reunion?" he said, thinking he was the funniest thing ever.

Julius and Six stood up, and Julius got in the guy's face. "Get fucked, Cardin." he said, with a significant amount of malice dripping from his voice.

Cardin stopped laughing, and now he was flanked by three lackeys. "I'm surprised you haven't lost your mouth, Julius." he said, smugly.

Julius shrugged. "I'd say I'm surprised you're still being a piece of shit to people after what we did to Harrier, but that would be a lie, and if there's one thing I'm not, it's a liar." he said, and Cardin stopped being smug.

Someone who looked like a raider tapped Cardin on the shoulder and pointed to Six, before whispering something in Cardin's ear. "That reminds me, who's this?" Cardin asked, pointing at Six.

"A friend. More than I can say for you with your lackeys, that's for sure." Julius replied.

Cardin got eye level with Six. "He doesn't look like much. Honestly, I'm not surprised you'd team up with a cripple like him." Cardin said, shrugging.

Six spat in Cardin's face, and he recoiled. "I've shat turds scarier than your ass, limp-dick. If you think you're intimidating me, think the fuck again."

Cardin wiped the spit off of his face. "Those are fighting words, buddy. You think your sorry ass can beat me?"

Six got in Cardin's face. "I know I can."

Cardin stared him down. "Fine, meet me in the amphitheater by 4 PM. I'm gonna wipe the floor with you, cyclops." he said, before backing off and heading down the hall, lackeys in tow.

Julius waited for Cardin to be out of earshot, before he looked at Six. "Don't worry, he's complete dogshit at actually fighting anyone who knows what they're doing." he said, putting his hand on Six's shoulder.

"Who was he? From what he was saying, it sounds like you and Aqui have some history with his group."

"Well, originally they had a fifth member who was their leader, I dunno, four, five years ago? Long story short, he accused me of stealing something from him, I pretty much told him to fuck off, he grabbed Aqui and started choking her, and then taunted me by saying I was responsible for our parents dying. After that, I blacked out, and when I came to, their leader was pretty much a bloody pulp, and Aqui and I were covered in blood." he said, looking back at Aqui and Allie, who were both happily chatting with each other.

"What happened to him after that?" Six asked.

"He was put in a coma for two years, and when he came out, he pretty much had to eat through a tube, was paralyzed from the waist down, and he only had control over one of his arms."

"Remind me not to fuck with you two."

Julius shrugged. "That's some free life advice for you, Nax. Anything else costs Lien." he said, chuckling. Six just looked at him. "I'm joking." Julius said, as if he suddenly felt the need to clarify.

* * *

 **GRIMM STUDIES**

 **9:32 AM**

* * *

"Monsters! Deeeemons. Prowlers of the night." Professor Port exclaimed, as if he were telling a fantastical story. "Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names, but I merely refer to them as prey!" he boasted, before giving off one of those cheesy 'ha-HA, please laugh' kind of laughs, only to be met with dead silence. Six noticed that Ruby had almost dozed off, before waking up when Port laughed.

Port seemed temporarily stunned by the silence, but continued nonetheless. "And you shall too, upon graduating from this prestigious academy." he said after recovering. "Now, as I was saying, Vale, as well as the other three kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world. Our planet is absolutely teeming with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces!" he warned, pacing back and forth.

Allie leaned over to Six. _"Sounds like the Mojave."_ she whispered. Six just nodded.

"And that's where we come in! Huntsmen! Huntresses!" he said, making a 'chik-chik' sound at the word Huntresses, earning him a groan from every female student in the class. "Individuals who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves! From what, you ask? Why, the very world!" he said, raising his left arm into the air, probably expecting the students to cheer. Someone did the same thing Port did, before everyone shot him a dirty glance and he stopped. "That is what you are training to become, but first, a story, a tale of a young, handsome man. Me!" he proudly said. Six kind of just tuned himself out of the story Port was telling. He did hear RWBY giggling, though, before Port cleared his throat.

"In the end, the Beowolf was no match for my sheer tenacity, and I returned to my village with the beast in captivity, and my head held high, celebrated as a hero." he said boastfully, before bowing. "The moral of the story? A true huntsman must be honorable, a true huntsman must be dependable, a true huntsman must be strategic, well educated, and wise! So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?" Port asked.

Six raised his hand. "I do, Professor." he said.

Six looked to where Port was standing, and saw Weiss had her hand up too. "I do, sir!" she said, visibly angry.

Port looked back and forth between Six and Weiss. "Oh, my! Two of you who believe they embody a true hunter! We'll see which of you truly has those qualities, and lucky for the both of you, I've brought two opponents for you two to face." he said, gesturing to two steel cages, each having a pair of glowing red eyes inside. "I'll let you two prepare." Port said.

Six and Allie were about to walk off to get ready, but Port stopped them. "Excuse me, Nax Stag, was it? You won't be allowed to have your partner with you during this exercise." he said, eyeing the both of them.

Six pointed to Allie. "My partner has all of my weapons and armor on her." he said, pointing at the duffel bag Allie was carrying.

"Might I ask why she isn't in the school's uniform, and is instead wearing your armor?"

Six shrugged. "The school didn't give her one to wear, and I'm not gonna let my partner go to class practically naked, so I gave her my armor since it's at least presentable." he said, lying.

"I wouldn't exactly call Vacuoan fashion 'presentable'!" Cardin shouted from the back, laughing, before everyone shot him a dirty glare, and he quieted down.

"Regardless, if that is truly the case, carry on." Port said, and Six and Allie left the room.

* * *

Six returned to the study hall in his armor, and saw that Weiss was already there, glaring at him. Port apparently hadn't noticed Weiss glaring, and instead addressed the two of them. "Now, which of you two would like to go first?" Port said in his usual prideful tone.

Six gestured to Weiss. "Ladies first." he said, smirking behind his helmet.

" _What a gentleman you are, Six."_ Allie sarcastically commented.

Weiss just huffed, and stepped onto the open floor, before Port pressed a button that raised a blast shield in front of the impromptu arena to protect the students from harm.

Six leaned on the shield, fully intent on analyzing how people tended to fight on Remnant. He heard the rest of RWBY cheering Weiss on.

Port pulled out a remote detonator, and Weiss pulled out a rapier of some sort, readying herself. "Alright, let the match… begin!" Port yelled as he slammed down on the detonator, and the lock on one of the cages detonated, sending the door flying outwards. Six heard something that sounded like a boar, and then saw a black boarlike Grimm come charging out of the cage, with **huge** tusks that curved upwards.

Weiss rolled out of the way, and swiped at the Grimm with her rapier. _"What in the hell was that? That's not how you use a rapier at ALL."_ Allie commented, and Six stayed silent, more from a lack of not knowing enough about rapiers than anything else.

The Grimm stopped the charge when it realized it missed Weiss, and turned to stare at her. "Haha! Wasn't expecting that, were you?" Port yelled to Weiss, and Six heard Ruby yelling at Weiss to hang in there.

Weiss charged the Grimm, and when her rapier was about to connect, the Grimm quickly turned its head to the side so that the rapier connected with one of the tusks, which caught Weiss off guard, and the Grimm slammed her in the side with the other tusk. Six also noticed that the rapier was now stuck in the Grimm's tusks, and Weiss was fighting the Grimm, trying to get the rapier free. _"She's got a pretty strong grip on her rapier, I'll give her that much."_ Allie commented.

"C'mon, Weiss! Show it who's boss!" Ruby shouted, and Weiss looked at her, before the Grimm knocked the rapier out of her hands.

" _Nevermind."_ Allie said, just as the Grimm pushed Weiss to the ground.

"Ohoho, what will you do now without your weapon?" Port commented.

Weiss looked up, and saw the Grimm charging at her. She looked panicked for a brief moment, rolled out of the way, and the Grimm slammed into the blast shield. Weiss almost immediately started running back for her rapier while the Grimm was stunned, and when she picked it up, Ruby yelled at her. "Weiss! Go for its belly, there's no armor undernea-" but was cut off by Weiss.

"Stop telling me what to do!" Weiss shouted back angrily, and Six noticed Ruby suddenly get sad, and Yang just glared at Weiss.

The Grimm roared, jumped in the air, and then curled into a ball, spinning when it hit the floor, before rolling directly after Weiss. When she was about to get hit, some sort of rune or glyph or something appeared in front of her, which the Grimm rammed into and knocked itself over. Weiss then jumped in the air, another glyph appeared behind her, and she launched herself into the Grimm, impaling the unarmed belly of the Grimm, killing it, and shortly after, the body disappeared.

"Bravo, bravo!" Port said, praising her. "Now, I believe it's Nax's turn to demonstrate what a true hunter looks like." he said, pressing a button to lower the blast shield, and Six traded places with Weiss. Port raised the shield once Six was inside.

* * *

 **(A/N: Play Covenant Dance from Halo CE)**

* * *

Six turned on his thermal vision, and saw another Grimm inside the second cage that looked exactly like the one Weiss fought. "Allie, as soon as that cage door drops, I want you to turn the invis module on." Six commanded.

" _Got it. Just be careful with it, alright? That Alpha from yesterday damaged the module a bit. It's still showing up as functional for me, but it reported some minor damage."_

Six didn't even hear Port say anything when he blew the lock open, but sure enough, another of those Boar Grimm came charging out. Six rolled out of the way, and Allie turned the invisibility module on, rendering him only as a faint shimmer to the outside observer.

"Amazing, simply amazing! A cloaking field to throw the enemy off and reposition yourself. Genius!" Port complimented, just as the Grimm rammed into the wall. It turned around and looked for Six, but didn't see him, so it sniffed the air. Six was currently crouched on Port's desk, watching the Grimm intently. It slowly sniffed its way to where Six was, and looked up at the desk before growling. Six dropped the stealth field, and grabbed onto the Grimm's tusks.

"Hey, mind if I borrow these? No? Great, thanks!" Six taunted, before ripping the Grimm's tusks off at the base, causing the Grimm to squeal in pain. Six tossed the tusks to the side, and then pulled out a grenade, pulled the pin, and forced it into the Grimm's open mouth, before jumping off of the desk and getting into cover, lying prone. The grenade inevitably went off, causing the Grimm's internal organs and blood to splatter the room, before it all disappeared into dust. Six got up, and turned to the class. The blast shield was going down, but Six could tell everyone was shocked at what just happened, even Professor Port.

"Amazing! I've never seen anyone defeat a Boarbatusk like that! Not even myself! Tell me, how did you manage to rip the tusks off? Doing something like that takes an incredible amount of strength, and for someone like you to be able to do it so effortlessly is truly something incredible!" Port said, applauding.

Six took his right glove off, revealing his mechanical hand. "I'm augmented." he said bluntly. Six saw some people look at him with disgust or otherwise turn away. Some looked more curious than anything else, and others looked even more surprised than before. JAMI, RWBY, and JNPR all looked curious, barring Aqui, who already knew. Six also saw Cardin staring at him with a mix of disgust and fear.

"Well, at any rate, we are most certainly in the presence of a true Huntsman and Huntress in training! Congratulations!" Port said proudly, before clearing his throat. "Unfortunately, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned readings, and be vigilant! Class dismissed." Port said, and people started immediately filing out of class.

* * *

 **9:50 AM**

* * *

Six was walking down the hall when he saw Ruby chase Weiss around a corner. He wasn't gonna bother with it until he heard them start arguing.

"What's wrong with you? Why are you being-!"

"What's wrong with me?! What's wrong with you!? You're supposed to be a leader, and all you've been so far is a nuisance!" Weiss shouted.

Ruby scoffed. "What did I do?" she asked.

"That's just it! You've done _nothing_ to earn your position! Back in the forest you acted like a child, and you've only continued to do so!" Weiss shouted.

Six butted in. "Maybe you should stop being so overly critical of her, Weiss." he said, staring at her.

Weiss just looked at him and scowled. "What makes you think you know about our situation?"

"Because I've seen this exact situation before, just with soldiers instead of teenagers. I remember a squad of four soldiers, one was the squad leader that was fed up with her squad's inability to function, one was a sheltered country kid that was incredibly naïve, one was a druggie, and the other was lazy, but smart…ish. The country kid pointed out that they all treated each other like total garbage, and I had a chat with the others in the squad and honestly agreed with him. So, I had a chat with the other three. The squad leader kept tearing everyone else down instead of working with them, the druggie hated them all and never gave them a shot until I pointed it out, and the lazy one just needed someone to appeal to his ego to make him work with the squad." Six said, leaning on the wall.

Weiss was still scowling at him. "What's your point?"

Six stared at her. "My point is that you're not co-operating and working with Ruby, and are instead tearing her down because she doesn't meet your presumably stupidly high standards for a partner. As a matter of fact, your whole team is probably suffering as a result of your bullheadedness."

Ruby looked at Six, then back to Weiss. "He has a point, Weiss. Back in the forest, you said you'd work together with me, and that you believed in acting as a team. What happened to all of that?" Ruby asked, trying to get an answer from Weiss.

"Not a team led by _you_. I've studied, and trained, and quite frankly, I deserve better." she said, clearly upset.

Six let out an annoyed sigh. "Weiss, if you've studied and trained to get where you're at right now, then you of all people should know that the world owes you absolutely jack-diddly-squat. If you feel that you deserve better, then you need to work for it." he said. Weiss just huffed and stormed off, saying something about Ozpin having made a mistake, and Ruby looked sad again. Six put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't mind her. If she's not as dense as she's acting like she is, then she'll come to her senses." he said, trying to reassure her.

"Hm. Now that didn't seem to go very well." Ozpin said, having appeared from practically nowhere.

Ruby turned to Ozpin. "Is she right? Did you make a mistake?" she asked, giving Ozpin puppy eyes.

"That remains to be seen." Ozpin said, reassuring her.

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked, confused.

"Ruby, I've made more mistakes than any man, woman, and child on this planet, but at this moment, I would not consider your appointment to leader to be one of them." he said, and Six wasn't entirely sure if he was exaggerating or not, and Six had gotten _**very**_ good at reading people after getting shot in the head. Ozpin leaned down to get eye level with Ruby. "Do you?"

Ruby didn't answer, and Ozpin stood straight again. "Being a team leader isn't just a title you carry into battle, but a badge you wear constantly. If you are not always performing at your absolute best, then what reason do you give others to follow you?" Ozpin asked, before turning away. "You've been burdened with a daunting responsibility, Ruby. I advise you take some time to think about how you will uphold it." Ozpin advised, before walking off.

"C'mon, Ruby. We need to get to class, or we're gonna be late." Six said.

Ruby perked up. "Right, Nax. Our next class was, uh, History with Oobleck, wasn't it?" Ruby said, not so sure of herself.

Six nodded. "Should be just down the hall."

* * *

 **10:42 AM**

 **OOBLECK'S HISTORY CLASS**

* * *

History was a topic that generally interested Six, and he remembers being fascinated by it even from an early age, so the prospect of learning the history of a world that was absolutely unlike Earth excited Six. Professor Oobleck was certainly an… interesting character. He was obviously passionate about his teachings, but Six could barely keep up with how fast he was speaking and moving around the room.

The first topic for the history class was apparently a recent one in the grand scheme of things. Around eighty odd years ago, Remnant had a Great War, which, much to Six's relief, was nothing like Earth's Great War. It was kicked off by citizens of the kingdoms of Vale and Mistral fighting each other over some islands, with prior tension having been caused by the kingdoms of Mantle and Mistral limiting freedom of expression, emotion, and the arts to suppress the Grimm, which are apparently drawn to negative emotions.

That wasn't what interested Six the most, though. What interested him the most was what Vacuo's army was doing. Vacuo didn't field a large army like the kingdoms of Vale, Mistral, and Mantle, which had millions of soldiers at their disposal. Rather, Vacuo had a small army of around twenty thousand troops, but they weren't government owned troops or anything. Vacuo's forces during the Great War consisted largely of armed members of a cult known as The Cult of the One, a cult that was based around worshipping the legend of Vacuo's One-Eyed Vigilante, as if they were a real person who ascended to Godhood to become a god of justice and righteousness. The Cult had been around for at centuries, but this version rose to prominence for leading a revolution against Vacuo's former government, one largely based around fascism, around twenty years before the Great War started, and was also the most well known of the iterations. Vacuo's army was the best in the war because of how deadly and efficient they were despite their relatively small size.

"Can anyone here name the tactics of the Vacuoan Militia, and ideally explain why they were so effective against the considerably larger Mantle and Mistralian armies?" Oobleck asked, rapidly looking at everyone in the classroom for a raised hand, until his eyes landed on Six, who had his hand up. "Go ahead, Nax."

Six cleared his throat. "Guerilla warfare, asset denial, scorched earth tactics, kidnapping of officials, VIP assassinations, terror attacks, torture tactics, and working in cells like an insurgency."

"Correct, and they did these things because…?"

"Because the leader of Vacuo who veered the country towards war promised to win by any means necessary, which included committing war crimes." Six said bluntly.

"Correct, now, can you tell me why these tactics were so effective against Mantle and Mistral?"

"It's a matter of force size, Professor. Mistral and Mantle were simply too large to be able to effectively fight back against the smaller force of Vacuo. Vacuoan forces would pop in, attack the armies of Mantle and Mistral quickly, and then slink away before they could mount an effective counterattack."

Oobleck's face lit up. "Excellent work, Nax. It's truly rare to see a student so invested in history. Now, as I was saying, after the war, Vacuo's government fell apart due to the news of the cult's war crimes spreading. A majority of the cult's armed forces were killed during the course of the war, as well as a majority of their officials, and soon enough, the cult fell into obscurity, with the surviving members scattering, either becoming bounty hunters to deal with Vacuo's now lawless state, or disappearing entirely." he said, and Oobleck changed the topic to something else about the Great War, relating to the Faunus.

* * *

By the time Six had tuned back in, class was dismissed, and Oobleck was checking his papers. Six got up and went over to Oobleck's desk. "Excuse me, Professor?" he asked, and Oobleck looked up from his desk.

"Yes, Nax?"

"Do you have any books regarding that One-Eyed Vigilante and the Cult of the One?" Six asked.

Oobleck looked thoughtful for a moment. "Intending to do independent research, are you? Tell me, what specifically would you be looking for?"

"Any compilations of stories regarding Vigilante, and any books you may have about various iterations of the cult, their tenets, and so on." Six said.

"I have more than enough covering those topics. I'll send them up to your dorm by the end of the day, Nax." Oobleck said, returning his attention to the papers.

"Great, thank you, Professor." Six said, before taking his leave.

* * *

 **3:56 PM**

 **BEACON AMPHITHEATER**

* * *

"You think he'll actually show up?" Julius asked.

"Probably not. From the way his face was when I showed my hand off, he was shitting bricks when he realized what kind of bed he made, and he probably really didn't want to lie in it." Six said nonchalantly.

Julius leaned back from where he was sitting, and stretched, before looking at Aqui. "Hey, Aqui. You know what I don't get about Cardin?"

"What?" Aqui replied.

"I don't get how he took up Harrier's place willingly. He and his buddies were practically blackmailed into doing what Harrier wanted, and yet when we kicked the shit out of Harrier, Cardin keeps doing what Harrier did, even though he could have cut all ties with him at that point and gone his own way."

Marshall shrugged. "Maybe that's all he knows."

"Maybe." Julius said.

Izzy was leaning against Marshall. "Honestly, I give the drongo ten minutes to show his ugly mug. Wouldn't be surprised if he backed out, and it definitely wouldn't be the first." she said, taking a bite out of an apple.

Suddenly, a student ran into the amphitheater, and ran up to the group. "U-um, excuse me, is one of you Julius Agilis?" he asked, stuttering and incredibly nervous.

Julius raised his hand. "That's me."

"C-Cardin says something's, uh, something's come up, and that, uh, he can't make it to your duel." he said, before running out.

"Told you." Izzy remarked.

"What a waste of time this was." Nax said, before getting up to leave.

* * *

 **7:14 PM**

 **Six's Dorm**

* * *

When Six stepped into his dorm, Oobleck's books had definitely arrived. On Six's cabinet, there were five thick books all pertaining to the Cult of the One, and a single, small book titled "Tales of the Vacuoan Vigilante."

Allie was already sitting on the bed, peering over the books.

" _Hmm, I wonder…"_ she mumbled to herself.

"Wonder what?" Six asked.

Allie snapped her attention to Six. _"Nothing."_

Six ignored it, and got ready for bed.

* * *

 **That concludes this chapter. Blah blah clarifications and shit.**

 **The Deity Brothers look like Truth from Fullmetal Alchemist, with the white brother being a 1:1 recreation minus the mouth, while the black brother has a mouth at all times. The black one also sounds something more like Ling's Japanese voice actor from FMA: Brotherhood because the black one is the younger, more destructive brother, while the white one is the older, wiser, and peaceful brother, and Ling's voice fits the bill for the black brother perfectly.**

 **If the whole scene with the Deity Brothers seems a bit, I dunno, off to you, it's because it was. I threw them in last chapter without really thinking of how I was gonna do it, but I've gotta roll with the punches and this is the result. I tried going over it without repeating known information ala the fucking Jabba scene in the "special" editions of A New Hope, where Jabba reiterates information that the viewer found out in the Greedo scene and thus, serves no purpose, so I tried to minimize that effect. The original plan was for the whole God/Jesus thing to be a real thing that Six was experiencing but the reception from that, and me thinking on that for a while made me go "yeah this aint such a hot idea after all" and I swapped them out for fragments of the Brothers. This is definitely for the best, honestly.**

 **Allie being able to move the suit around is something I took a page from Fullmetal Alchemist for. I originally planned it so that she wouldn't be able to and the suit would be immobile without Six controlling it, but then I had a real good thunk about that and realized "fuck I cant make a decent explanation for how she's keeping up with Six in terms of information about Remnant" so I pretty much just turned her into female Alphonse from FMA so she can still be with Six, in that she's controlling a suit of empty armor, albeit with technology instead of alchemy.**

 **If Cardin seemed like too much of a malicious asshole this chapter, how would you act towards someone who nearly killed your authority figure, but instead gave them a fate I'd argue was worse than death? Cardin has a very deep seated hatred for what Julius and Aqui did, whereas compared to how Cardin acts with Jaune, he's more of a shitty bully from an 80s movie set in a high school.**

 **Final thing of note. I've been mulling over something the past few days. RWBY's story obviously isn't all that great. I mean, Monty apparently originally conceived the whole thing as a bunch of fight scenes loosely stringed together with a "plot", and there are** _ **way**_ **too many characters, so many that the show's writing can't really handle the load. Point is, up to this point I've basically been copying the dialogue and occasionally adding dialogue/actions from JAMI or NA (what I'm calling Six's and Allie's 'team', pronounced 'Nah") and I need your opinion on how to proceed. Should I continue writing chapters as is by effectively copy-pasting episode transcripts, or do I take said transcripts and rewrite them to be my style? The latter would obviously take longer and may result in characters becoming OOC (although I'd try to minimize that), but it would be more in tune with the rest of the story, whereas the former would be faster but there would be a very clear and very obvious divide between my writing and the show's writing.**

 **Matter of fact, here's a strawpoll.** **me/16553263**

 **Vote now.**

 **Anyways, till next time.**

 **-Tweak**


	10. The Bear Falls Forever

**10 chapters hello**

 **Just wanna say something right quick. I keep thinking up all these ideas for Grimm Retreat because I don't have an author's bible set up. My own custom elements, for example, have largely been shit I thought up on the fly. Exhibit A: Allie being implemented was literally just the result of me thinking about what custom modifications could be made to the Elite Riot Gear after having played a ton of Halo.** **Exhibit B: The Cult of the One was something I thought up a few days before writing that chapter. I'm now keeping an author's bible of important notes and shit so I don't forget something important accidentally. I've got a shitton of cool ideas stored there, one of which is coming soon™.**

 **The results are in from the strawpoll, and the answer is overwhelmingly in favor of me rewriting the episodes.**

 **To Rio Skyron: Possibly, but there'd still be something of a tonal divide between my scenes and RWBY's. Also, I looked at the plot summary for Outlaws, and that's almost exactly one for one what the rewrite of Grimm Retreat was going to look like before I put Six into Beacon. He would have originally struck out on his own and gone back into bounty hunting but I decided against it.**

 **To Constipated Genius: The Deity Brothers are their true form. As for Port, he's aware of what Allie actually is. In hindsight, I probably should have had some student ask "wait, why is his partner not in uniform?" and then have Port ask and then Six explain so he wouldn't be bothered about it again. Whatever, though. That was a fuckup on my end.**

 **To Garret U Burnnop: Nah, the original version of Grimm Retreat was total dogshit. I thought I was hot shit when I was writing it but I ended up just filling up word limits and not actually putting that much thought into it in the grand scheme of things. I'm way, way happier with this version of the story.**

 **On with the show.**

* * *

 **UNKNOWN WAREHOUSE IN VALE**

 **12:05 AM**

* * *

Torchwick heard the door open, and looked to see who it was. It was none other than Cinder Fall, his superior. "My, my. If it isn't Miss Fall. What brings you here this fine evening?" he joked, brushing the bangs covering his right eye, revealing a gold studded eyepatch.

Cinder pulled out a small folder of papers, and handed it to Roman. "Here is what we've dug up on the girl from the Dust Store robbery the other night." she said, giving him a menacing look.

Roman took the folder. "And what of the bounty hunter?" he said, letting out a puff of cigar smoke.

"We know next to nothing about him." Cinder replied.

Roman's cigar fell out of his mouth. "Why?"

"There are zero prior sightings of anyone even remotely dressed like him in any of the four kingdoms, and there is no record of anyone with his equipment being given a license for bounty hunting in Vacuo, not even a faked one. Believe me, I checked with all of my contacts. We are completely in the dark on the bounty hunter." Cinder said. "However, we do know that he has been accepted into Beacon. One of our lower level contacts there alerted me to the fact that two students didn't need to go through standard processing. They were directly brought in and approved by Ozpin himself. He has provided us with duplicates of their files." she said, pulling out two documents, one of which had the name 'Ruby Rose' on it, and the other had 'Nax Strag'. The one with Nax Strag's name on it had a picture of a man with a stubble, black hair that looked like it had been put in front of an industrial fan for the better part of a day, a rather large scar across his face, an eyepatch on his left eye, and a steel colored eye that looked…wrong, somehow, but Roman couldn't place his finger on it.

Roman chuckled. "That's him? He doesn't look like much." he said, looking over the document.

"Just thought you should know. After all, he did take your eye." Cinder said, before leaving the warehouse, and Torchwick started looking over Ruby's document.

* * *

 **?**

* * *

Six found himself driving along a shitty, bumpy old road in the desert. It was just after sundown, and the moon was barely starting to peak over the horizon. Six was getting a real bad sense of déjà vu, but he couldn't pin down exactly why, so he ignored it.

Eventually, Six saw a barely lit town in the distance, and he checked the car's dash. The fuel was almost out, but with any luck, he could restock on microfusion cells at the general store in the morning. Six pulled into the town and, just as he suspected, the general store was closed for the night. Thankfully, Six's favorite place to hang around was open; the bar, and he strolled on in and took a seat.

The bartender was cleaning a glass. "What'll it be?" she asked.

"Bottle of whiskey." Six said, tossing twenty odd caps onto the counter, and the bartender handed him a bottle of whiskey, which Six immediately started drinking. He still felt incredibly uneasy, and didn't exactly know why, which didn't help him much.

Ten minutes passed, which was usually more than enough time for Six to start feeling the effects of alcohol. He took another swig, and through the bottle, he saw three guys walk into the bar. Two raider types, and a guy in a black and white checkered suit. The three of them sat not too far from where Six was sitting.

Wait, checkered suit?

Six thought about it for a second, and then the realization hit him like a freight train. This wasn't reality, this was a dream, a dream about the night he was shot in the head. Six tried to reach into his duster to pull out Sweet Revenge and shoot Benny, but not only did he not have total control over his body, his riot gear was gone, replaced by the old outfit he wore from when he was still employed by the Mojave Express.

Six saw Sunny Smiles come and take a seat next to him, and by then, he knew it was too late. Six had already started involuntarily flirting with her, and promptly got knocked on his ass for his troubles, dazing him. Benny stood over him, and Six saw him hand her a bag of caps. "Take this as an apology, honey." he said, and she took the bag. "Grab the drunk." Benny commanded, and the Khans started dragging Six out, and he faded out of consciousness before long.

* * *

When Six came to, he saw his hands were tied with rope. He didn't even try to break free, as he knew what was going to happen next, so Six just sighed.

"Good, you're awake." Six heard Benny say, and Six looked up, only to find that Benny was not only facing him, but he was alone, with the two Khans nowhere to be found. "Listen, kid. The game's always been rigged against you. I don't know how you keep winning against it, even with all bets against you, but your luck's gonna run out sooner or later." he said, lighting a cigar, before reaching into his jacket and pulling out two small objects, the Platinum Chip, and Allie's Storage Chip. Benny rubbed the two devices together. "And when it does, you'll have to cash out, whether you want to or not." Benny said, as he threw the chips into the air, and they transformed into dust, and blew away in the wind.

Benny drew Maria, and fired directly at Six's head.

* * *

Six shot up in bed, panicked. He took a minute to catch his breath, before looking to his left to check on Allie. She was sleeping peacefully, clutching a small hologram of a plush doll of Six's armor. Six checked the time.

6:02 AM.

" _Might as well read the books I got from Oobleck."_ Six thought to himself as he got out of bed, and headed to the desk with the pile of books on it. He turned on the desk light so that he could read, and he opened the _Tales of the Vacuoan Vigilante_ book.

Very little caught his attention. The Vigilante did bounty hunting for his mentor in ancient Vacuo, the mentor got killed, he tracked the killer down and killed him in his own castle, the Vigilante did more bounty hunting work afterwards, before effectively going into retirement. Six read onwards, regardless.

The next bit that Six read was about the Vigilante tracking the mastermind behind his mentor's killing to the snowy continent of Solitas. "Many details remain unknown, but what is known is that the mastermind was a humanoid Grimm. The Vigilante was killed in the ensuing fight, and was buried in an unmarked grave, but rose from the dead, and avenged his mentor, slaying the Grimm." he mumbled to himself. Six leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling. _"It's probably just a coincidence."_ Six thought.

" _What are you doing?"_ Six heard Allie ask. He looked behind him, and saw Allie looking at him with one eye open, still clutching the hologram plush.

"Reading."

" _Reading what?"_ Allie asked, and Six showed her the book, before setting it back down on the desk. _"What's it about?"_

"It's a collection of stories about that Vigilante from Vacuo. I've been reading it, and I want your take on it." he said, and Allie started reading the book, with Six flipping the pages for her.

Allie hopped up onto the desk. _"This Vigilante person, his story sounds a lot like yours, doesn't it?"_ she said, staring at Six.

Six nodded. "It does, but I think it's just a coincidence. It's not too unreasonable to think someone here on Remnant went through something similar to what we did."

Allie twiddled her thumbs. _"I'll admit, I don't actually have a take on the Vigilante. I've got a theory at the moment, but it's full of holes, and I'm not confident enough in it to actually say it."_ she said, looking down at her feet.

Six looked at her. "Gotcha. That was all, Allie."

" _I'll be running some diagnostics, then."_ Allie said, before disappearing, and Six pulled out one of the books on the Cult itself, and started reading.

* * *

 **(A/N: Play End Credits Part 2 from Black Mesa's soundtrack)**

* * *

Allie's diagnostics had already finished, so to pass the time, she was viewing archived combat footage from her time with Six in the Mojave. Specifically, she was viewing the footage from the duel with Legate Lanius. For whatever reason, Six had decided several months before the actual battle of Hoover Dam to kill Lanius in melee combat. To accomplish something like that, he had brought in a group of wandering swordsmen that he had apparently encountered several times during his time in the Mojave. They trained him how to fight with a katana properly, as it was effectively the only sword in the Wasteland not made out of random parts, and Six considered it to be just light enough, but sturdy enough, and with a decent enough reach.

Six had been consistently dodging Lanius' attacks for a while now, occasionally parrying, but he was wearing Lanius down. Lanius' attacks were far too slow and predictable to be able to effectively fight someone using a lighter sword and set of armor. Still, Six was able to move much, much quicker than he normally can. He was practically teleporting around Lanius. Allie waited for the right moment to pause the footage.

Six and Lanius locked blades again, and Six parried, before finally countering, ramming the katana through a chink in Lanius' armor. Allie paused the footage, and observed closely. The katana had a faint orange glow around it, as did Six's body. Allie opened a second window, this time of the recording from the Emerald Forest. She skipped ahead to when Six was pounced by the Beowolf, and waited for Randall to save Six's life. She paused the footage when Randall killed the Beowolf, and helped Six up, and compared the two side by side. Sure enough, Randall had the same orange glow as Six did in the duel with Lanius.

" _Still not enough proof. I'm gonna need something bigger than that if I want to prove anything."_ Allie said to herself, before going back to observing her recordings.

* * *

 **THREE WEEKS LATER**

 **11:40 AM**

* * *

"Begin!" Glynda yelled, and Cardin and Jaune started circling each other, weapons at the ready. Jaune looked incredibly nervous, but he made the first move, charging at Cardin, screaming the whole way.

Cardin simply sidestepped, and hit Jaune in the back with his mace, sending him flying across the room. Jaune tumbled, but managed to land on his feet. He then charged at Cardin again, but Cardin sidestepped again, but Jaune must have been expecting that, because he had his blade ready to strike where Cardin was. Cardin didn't expect that, and got hit, and Jaune stopped his charge, but was met with Cardin swinging his mace, hitting Jaune upside the head, sending him flying again. Jaune somehow managed to land on his feet again, and was now visibly out of breath.

Julius looked up at the Aura meters. Cardin had only lost a sliver of his aura, while Jaune's aura was about to dip into the red.

Jaune charged forward again, and swung his blade down, but it hit the ground as Cardin had dodged it. Cardin then swung his mace, hitting Jaune's shield, knocking it out of his hand. Jaune hit the ground again, but quickly got back up, charged, and swung at Cardin, who effortlessly blocked the swing with his mace. Cardin pushed Jaune's blade down towards him, and then kneed Jaune in the gut, before moving in to make the finishing blow.

The buzzer rang, and Cardin swung his mace down, but stopped himself short, visibly stumbling.

"That's enough, Cardin." Glynda said, walking out onto the amphitheater's stage. She pulled out a scroll with a display of Jaune's and Cardin's Auras on it. "As you can see, students, Jaune's Aura has now dropped far into the red zone. In duels with tournament rulesets, this means that Jaune is no longer able to battle, and the match will be called by an official."

Julius leaned over to Aqui. "It's been three weeks, and Jaune still fights like complete garbage." he whispered.

"I know. I want to help him, but I don't use a shield, and I know you don't. Anything we could teach him would be purely subjective and might not even work for him, since his fighting style is completely different from ours." she replied.

Julius thought about something for a minute. "I'm pretty sure Pyrrha uses a sword with her shield. Maybe she'll be more of a help to him than we would be. Assuming she teaches him, of course."

Before they could converse any further, Glynda continued speaking. "Jaune, please start using your Scroll during combat. Using it to gauge your Aura in combat will go a long way to staying in a fight, be it when choosing to be aggressive, or pulling back to be more defensive. We wouldn't want a Beowulf to eat you now, would we?"

Cardin picked his mace up and walked off. "Remember everyone! The Vytal Festival is just a few months away! It's not going to be very long before students from the other three kingdoms start arriving in Vale, so keep practicing! Those here who compete in the tournament will represent not only Beacon, but all of Vale!" Glynda exclaimed, and the bell rang.

Julius leaned over to Six. "That reminds me. You competing in the Vytal festival, Nax?" he asked.

"Probably? It's still months off, and I haven't made up my mind about it yet." he replied.

Julius got up, and dusted himself off. "Fair enough. C'mon, Aqui, let's go get something to eat, cause I'm starving." he said, motioning for his partner to follow him.

* * *

 **BEACON DINING HALL**

 **12:15 PM**

* * *

Six entered the dining hall with a tray of food, and he saw JAMI, RWBY, and JNPR sitting together at a table. Julius noticed Six, and motioned for Six to come sit down. As Six approached, Nora looked like she was telling some sort of campfire story. Nora suddenly shot up. "Dozens of them!" she yelled.

"Two of 'em." Ren said, annoyed.

"They were no match for us, and in the end, Ren and I took 'em down, and we made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs!" she said happily, just as Six took a seat.

Ren just sighed. Six noticed that Jaune was looking a bit depressed, but before he could say anything, Pyrrha beat him to the punch. "Jaune, are you okay?" she asked.

Jaune jumped a bit. "Huh? I'm fine." he said, obviously not fine.

"You don't look fine to me, Jaune. As a matter of fact, you didn't look fine after Cardin beat you, either." Julius said.

"I don't think there's a more teenage way of saying "I'm not okay" than playing with your food and looking all disinterested, Jaune." Six chimed in.

"Uh… what they said!" Ruby said, pointing at Six and Julius.

"Look, guys, I'm fine. Really!" Jaune said, giving a cheesy and nervous smile. Six just rolled his eyes, before someone laughing caught the group's attention. Everyone turned and saw CRDL harassing a rabbit Faunus, with Sky making rabbit ears and dancing like a moron, and Dove, Russel, and Cardin laughing it up, while the Faunus was obviously uncomfortable, and was fidgeting in her spot. Jaune balled his fist up.

"Jaune, Cardin's been harassing you since day one of school. I don't think you're fine, at all." Pyrrha said, concerned for her partner.

Jaune stumbled a bit. "Er… no, Cardin just likes to uh, he likes to mess around is all. Y'know, practical jokes!" Jaune said, failing to hold his lie together.

"Jaune, everyone on my team knows that that couldn't be further from the truth. Cardin's always been a prick to just about everyone, and if you were a Faunus, you'd get it worse than you are now." Julius said, pointing his fork at Jaune. Everyone on JAMI nodded in agreement.

"Oh, please! Name one time he's bullied me, or one of you guys." Jaune said, shrugging it off.

"He tried to stab me about six years ago, only reason he didn't was because Marshall knocked him out cold." Izzy said.

"One of his buddies tried to strangle Aqui." Julius said, and Aqui nodded to confirm.

"I saw him knock your books out of your hands in the halls." Blake commented.

"He expanded your shield when you were going to class, making you hit the doorway." Weiss said nonchalantly, filing her nails.

"He threw you into a locker and set it to land you in the Emerald Forest." Ren pointed out.

Jaune shrugged that one off. "I didn't land that far from the school." he said, giving a fake laugh.

"You were gone for two days." Pyrrha said, putting her hand on Jaune's shoulder. "Jaune, if you ever need help, you know you can just ask us, right?" she continued.

Nora suddenly shot up, eyes wide. "I know! We'll break his legs!" she said with a scary amount of enthusiasm.

"I second that motion. All in favor?" Julius said, looking down the row to the rest of his teammates, only to notice that Marshall was nowhere to be found. "Wait, where did Marshall go?" he asked, looking around, before spotting Marshall at the table CRDL was at. He looked like he was talking with Cardin, before shrugging and walking back to the table everyone else was at, but he gave Izzy two taps on the shoulder. She suddenly stood up, pulled out a small blowgun, and shot it four times at the members of CRDL, before quickly ducking back down. The members of CRDL all looked around, before going back to harassing the Faunus girl. "What did you just do, Izzy?" Julius asked.

Izzy started giggling. "Wait and see." she said, pointing at CRDL. Everyone watched, and soon enough, the members of CRDL looked queasy, before running out of the dining hall. "I poisoned them. They're gonna be throwing up for a good ten minutes or so."

Ren stared at her. "You… poisoned them?" he asked, shocked.

Izzy nodded. "Yeah, not enough to kill them, cause I'm not a monster. Just enough to make them all sick to their stomachs." she said casually, ignoring the implications of this. Everyone except Marshall moved an inch away from her, and continued eating.

* * *

 **OOBLECK'S HISTORY CLASS**

 **3:34 PM**

* * *

Oobleck was racing around the room. "Yes! Prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly known as the Faunus War, mankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing the Faunus population in Menagerie." he said, before taking a sip from his thermos. "Now! While this may seem like ancient history to most of you, it's imperative to remember these are relatively recent events! Why, the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day!" he said, before taking another sip. "Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated against because of your Faunus heritage?" Oobleck asked.

Six saw Izzy raise her hand, and then the rabbit girl from lunch reluctantly raised hers, as well as several others.

"Dreadful! Simply dreadful! Students, that is precisely the kind of ignorance that breeds violence!" Oobleck said, before taking another sip. "I mean, just look at what happened with the White Fang!" he said, before changing positions. "Now, which of you young scholars can tell me what many theorists believe to be the turning point in the third year of the war?" Oobleck asked, his head rapidly darting from student to student.

Weiss raised her hand. "The battle at Fort Castle!"

" _Talk about redundancy."_ Six thought to himself.

"Precisely! Now, who can tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?" Oobleck asked, before darting to Jaune. "Mister Arc, finally contributing to class, excellent!" he yelled. "What is the answer?"

"The answer is, uh… the advantage the Faunus had over that guy's stuff… was binoculars!" he said proudly. The entire class burst out laughing. Even Six chuckled, although Allie punched him in the shoulder for it.

Oobleck sipped from his thermos again. "Very funny, Mr. Arc. While binoculars are important for reconnaissance, you must remember that the battle of Fort Castle was a defensive one that occurred during the night, rendering binoculars not only unnecessary, but useless for the defenders." Oobleck said, before his eyes darted to Cardin, who was still laughing. "Cardin, perhaps you would care to share your thoughts on the matter?"

"Well, I know it's a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier." Cardin remarked.

"You're not the most open-minded person, are you, Cardin?" Pyrrha asked angrily.

"What, you got a problem?" Cardin retorted.

"No, I have the answer. It's night vision." Pyrrha answered. "Many Faunus are known to have near-perfect sight in the dark."

"General Lagune was inexperienced and made the mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep. His army was outmatched, and the General was captured." Blake added on.

" _Guess NODs were a recent development on Remnant, then."_ Six thought.

"Maybe if he'd paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as a total failure." Blake remarked.

The class had a collective "oooh", and Cardin was positively pissed at getting shown up twice. He stood up, but Oobleck immediately told him to sit down. Jaune started snickering, and Oobleck dashed in front of Jaune. "You and Mr. Winchester can both see me after class for additional readings." Oobleck stated, and Cardin and Jaune audibly complained.

"Now, moving on!" Oobleck yelled, but the bell rang. "Nevermind, that will be all for today. Remember, class, read pages through 51 through 71!"

* * *

 **SIX'S DORM**

 **8:15 PM**

* * *

Six was reading through the books pertaining to the Cult of the One. Apparently, this Vigilante character was viewed like a Messiah to them. "It is said that the Vigilante disappeared from the mortal plane and ascended to godhood as a punishment for man, and a test of faith to those who believe in Him. Cult scripture states that when the world is in chaos, and on the brink of total annihilation, He will return, reshaping the cult to its former glory, and will lead them to victory against their foes. Sacrifices are regularly made in His name, in the hope that he will return, as well as to prove the cult's dedication to His teachings." Six read out loud.

Allie appeared, floating over the desk. _"Find anything new?"_ she asked, twirling a hologram of a revolver in her hand.

"Not much. Just that the Vigilante is the Cult's messiah. They view his disappearance as a punishment for mankind, and their scripture states that he's going to return when the world is on the brink of falling into the void, which is probably gonna be soon. Assuming it's not total horseshit, of course." Six replied, flipping the page.

" _You should probably head to bed, Six. Don't forget, there's that field trip in a few days to the Forever Fall forest."_ Allie said, before disappearing.

"Right, almost forgot about that." Six said, before turning the light off.

* * *

 **FOUR DAYS LATER**

 **FOREVER FALL FOREST**

 **2:57 PM**

* * *

Six was walking behind JAMI in the Forever Fall forest. The whole place was full of trees with red leaves, and even the grass was red too for some reason. Students were oooh-ing and aaah-ing at all the pretty sights. "Yes, students, the Forever Fall forest is beautiful, but we're not here to sightsee. We're here to collect sap samples from trees deep inside this forest for Professor Peach, and I'm here to make sure that none of you die while doing so." Glynda said, coming to a halt.

" _I still can't get over that name. Professor Peach? Really?"_ Allie said, giggling.

Glynda pulled out a jar of a red substance. "Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap, however, this forest is full of Grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates. We will rendezvous back here at four o'clock. Have fun!" she said, taking a seat, and the teams almost immediately spread out. Six looked behind him, and saw Cardin smirking at Jaune, who was holding a giant suitcase with several jars on top, probably for the rest of CRDL.

" _Poor guy. Probably got blackmailed into doing this."_ Allie commented, as Six grabbed the jar and tap, and followed the other students, while he saw Jaune and CRDL wander off in a random direction.

* * *

Six had found himself a nice tree that looked like it held plenty of sap inside it. He kneeled down and examined the tree.

" _You do know how to tap a tree, right?"_ Allie asked.

"A little bit." Six replied.

" _First, you need to drill a hole into the tree..."_

"I don't have a drill, so fuck it, combat knife it is." Six said as he started cutting into the tree with his knife.

" _Ghetto analogues work too, I guess. Next, you need to take the tap, and gently hammer it into the hole."_

Six inserted the tap, and instead of gently hammering it into place, he just punched the thing in. _"Six!"_ Allie yelled at him.

"What? It got results." he said, and sure enough, the tree was bleeding sap like a stuck Brahmin. The tap wasn't even damaged, either, and the jar was already under a quarter of the way full. Six sat down in the grass. "That was easy as fuck, honestly." he said casually, observing the other students.

Suddenly, there was a bearlike roar. "What was that noise?" Six heard Julius ask. Soon after, Russel, Dove, and Sky came running out of the treeline.

"Ursa, Ursa!" Russel yelled, before ramming into Yang, who grabbed him by the shirt.

"Where?" she asked, shaking him.

"Back there, it's got Cardin!" Russel yelled, pointing behind him.

Pyrrha dropped her jar. "Jaune!" she yelled.

"Yang, Blake, go get Professor Goodwitch!" Ruby commanded, and the pair nodded, before running off.

"You two, go with them, there could be more!" Pyrrha yelled to Ren and Nora, who nodded and ran after Blake and Yang. "The rest of you, on us!" Pyrrha commanded, before running ahead with Ruby. JAMI and Six managed to keep pace, but they were still behind the pair.

They eventually came to a clearing, and saw Cardin crawling away from the Ursa. It went to swipe, but in an instant, Jaune was there, blocking the swipe with his shield. Miraculously, he was actually _holding his ground_ against the immense weight of the Ursa. Jaune lifted the Ursa's paw away from himself, and tossed it to the side, leaving the Ursa open for a strike, which Jaune took. Enraged, the Ursa attacked where Jaune was previously standing, but he rolled out of the way in time. The Ursa swiped again, and Jaune simply jumped over it. The Ursa then punched, and connected with Jaune in midair, sending him flying, but he rolled and regained his footing, before charging again, and jumping to hit the Ursa, but it simply swatted him out of the air. Jaune landed, got his bearings, and then charged one last time, with the Ursa charging too. The Ursa swiped at him, but a black glow surrounded his shield, and it raised to block the swipe, before Jaune decapitated the Ursa in one single strike.

Six noticed Pyrrha's hand had the same glow, before she lowered it. "Er, what was that?" Ruby asked.

"How did you do that?" Weiss asked, visibly confused.

"Well, you have your speed, and you've got your glyphs…" Pyrrha said, looking at Ruby and Weiss, respectively. "…My Semblance is Polarity." she said.

Ruby was in awe. "Woah, you've got control over poles, that's awesome…"

Weiss's eyes immediately darted to Ruby. "No, you dolt! It means she has control over magnetism!"

Pyrrha started to walk off. "Wait, Pyrrha, where are you going? We've got to tell Glynda what happened!" Ruby yelled.

"We could… or maybe we could keep it our little secret." Pyrrha said slyly.

"Keep what a secret? The fact that most of CRDL left their leader to die, or the fact that Cardin would have his ego destroyed if word of this got out?" Six asked, looking at Cardin, who was now surrounded by JAMI.

Pyrrha chuckled. "Both."

Six shrugged. "Fine by me."

* * *

Marshall picked Cardin up and shook him, before setting him down and turning him to face Julius. "Listen here, you petty piece of shit. Your bullshit antics nearly caused Jaune to die saving your worthless ass from your own stupidity. You owe him your goddamned life for caring enough to save you, despite all the shit you've done to him." Julius said, positively **furious**.

"Cardin, if I were you, I'd take this as a sign to distance yourself from what Harrier's taught you, and to become a better person. Putting yourself above everyone else won't get you very far as a Hunter. As a matter of fact, I'd guarantee that if anyone else you bullied was in Jaune's position, they'd have let you die, rather than save you." Aqui said, giving Cardin a death glare.

Jaune walked up behind Julius, and put his hand on his shoulder, before glaring at Cardin. "Cardin, don't you dare mess with me, my team, or my friends ever again. Got it?" he said, clearly angry.

Cardin gave a fearful nod, and everyone started to head back to the rendezvous point.

* * *

 **SIX'S DORM**

 **9:12 PM**

* * *

As Six laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, he thought about the events of the past few weeks.

Getting dropped into a foreign location randomly, being practically on your own, shooting at a criminal, seeing straight up magic for the first time, becoming involved in an academy focused on combating an endless stream of hellspawn, and finding out that not only is there a god, but that you're part of a divine plot, doesn't exactly leave a whole lot of room for reflection.

Six's mind drifted back to the riddle. "When the bear falls forever, the green man leaves the shining beacon for the sands of time…" he quietly said to himself.

He thought about that further. _"The bear falls forever, huh?"_ he thought to himself. What could that possibly mean?

It took a minute for Six to process that. _"When the Ursa is killed in Forever Fall, the green man leaves Beacon for the sands of time."_ he thought again. _"Sands of time is either Vacuo or Menagerie. Those are the only two desert areas on Remnant, so it's one of them."_

But who could the green man be? Was it literal? Maybe metaphorical?

Whatever it was, that was the one thing Six couldn't answer, and soon enough, he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 **Did you know that I fucking hate using timeskips, but am forced to because RWBY uses them to ignore character development and skip ahead, and I want to avoid filler shit because I don't want to bore you people to death? Yeah, fun! It's even more fun that there isn't a goddamned timetable for Beacon's classes, so I have to make shit up on the fly and hope for the best!**

 **Blech. The timeskips will stop or otherwise slow down considerably post Battle of Beacon, primarily because that will be Grimm Retreat's diverging point from RWBY's main story, and from that point onward it'll be my own writing. Until that point, all blame is on RWBY's writers for fuckery involving the time and date.**

 **Time for clarifications.**

 **I know when I introduced Allie I said she couldn't be removed from the Stealth Suit, and while that was initially true when the Riot Gear and Stealth Suit were merged, Arcade Gannon later found a way for Allie to be removed from the suit and stored onto a chip that goes inside the helmet. Why? Because sometimes an AI would be better at fucking with computers from the inside than a human would be.**

 **Six dreaming of the night he was shot by Benny wasn't something induced by the Brother Gods.**

 **Six was originally supposed to find CRDL beating up on Izzy as well as Velvet, and Russel would have called Izzy a "fuckin' dumbass lig", but I cut this for reasons that become immediately obvious if you take a look at the word lig for more than a quarter of a second in the context of the Faunus. This also would have been a Space Station 13 reference.**

 **Everyone was originally supposed to see what CRDL was doing, as well as the fight with the Ursa Major, because CRDL and Jaune were on the ridge just above where everyone was gathering sap (as seen in Forever Fall) but I changed this after watching Forever Fall Part 2, which, for whatever reason, changed their location to be way further away than just a stone's throw.**

 **That's all for this chapter, now for me to go back to playing Shadow Warrior 2.**

' **Till next time.**

 **-Tweak**


	11. Revelations

**After several weeks of waiting, and many days of work put into this chapter, I've finally finished it, the longest chapter insofar. It's almost 3 AM as of publishing this chapter, and I'm fucking tired as hell.**

 **I have nothing to say other than;**

 **This version of Grimm Retreat has now hit around 21k views, more than the original story, so now I can finally bury that abomination and never have to think too hard about it.**

 **I'm making a supercut of the Grimm Retreat New Vegas save file vaguely in the style of George Salonikh's "The Best Metal Gear Solid Playthrough on Youtube" series. As of writing, I'm editing up My Kind of Town. This shit is mentally draining as fuck, it takes like four hours to edit about 40 minutes of footage because the style demands a heavy amount of jump cuts and dialogue skipping, holy fuck.**

 **On to the reviews.**

 **To Aquaticmammals: Fuck no, it's not Big Boss. Multi-crossovers are clusterfucks in my eyes. Big Boss wasn't even a bounty hunter, either.**

 **To Auxillary Nexus: Allie isn't a living, organic being, and thus, she lacks a soul to use Aura with. If she were somehow moved to a mobile platform like Penny, then yes, she would be able to use Aura, but she can't at the moment.**

* * *

 **FRIDAY**

 **OOBLECK'S HISTORY CLASS**

 **10:00 AM**

* * *

Before class started, Oobleck had been talking with someone who had short, black hair in a white suit, with a snowflake on the sleeves. As soon as class started, Oobleck stood up, mug in hand. "Attention, class! I have a very important announcement to make!" he said, before taking a sip from the mug. "Our prestigious academy has received a very rare opportunity! The Schnee Dust Company has invited our class to take a trip to their archaeological dig in Vacuo. Believe me when I say that this is a _very_ historical moment, and is a once in a lifetime chance. Hans, would you please explain the details to the class?" he said, gesturing to the man in the white suit, before taking a sip of coffee.

Hans stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Thank you, Professor. Now, I'm sure most of you are already aware, but in the event that you're not, around five weeks ago, the SDC began an expedition to Vacuo to find new sources of Dust, with a side goal of uncovering new archaeological artifacts. Instead, what we found was something that turned our modern ideas of early human civilization completely on its head. As you most assuredly already know, the oldest human artifact is around 101,450 years old, with no signs of prior civilization." he said, before taking a breath. "Yesterday, that changed. We uncovered a metaphorical, as well as literal, treasure trove of historical artifacts, all of which have been dated to be around 200,000 years older than the previous historical artifact. The scale of this find is also exponentially larger than previous finds. Previously, we've only found the ruins of small villages and homes, but this find is an entire _region_ of ancient Vacuo." Hans said, clearly excited.

One of the female students in the back raised her hand. "When is the trip?" she asked, and the class started murmuring.

Oobleck's head immediately darted to her. "Tomorrow." he said, before taking another sip from his mug, and the murmuring instantly turned into an uproar. Oobleck slammed his mug down on the desk, like a judge would slam a gavel, and the uproar stopped. "Now that I have everyone's attention again, I want to stress that this field trip is _purely optional_ , and that you do not need to attend if you don't want to. However, should you choose to go, you will be awarded bonus points, so if you're falling behind in this class, I highly advise that you do go." Oobleck said, eyeing Cardin, before taking another sip of his coffee.

Six raised his hand. "Question, why is this trip on such short notice?"

Hans turned to face Six. "I can answer that, actually. The reason for such short notice is that we fear this find may be of interest to the Cult of the One. We want to get in, uncover what we can, and get out before they show up, should any information leak, which I highly doubt."

Oobleck took another sip of his coffee. "Does anyone have any other questions?" he asked.

No response.

"Then that will be all. Sign-ups for the trip open after class, and end at midnight."

"I'll take my leave, then." Hans said, before exiting the room.

Oobleck cleared his throat. "Now, class, open your books to page two hundred thirty eight." he said, setting his mug on the desk, before a panel opened, taking the mug down into the desk for about a minute, before coming back up, full of coffee again.

* * *

The line for sign ups was surprisingly long. If Six had to guess, around 3/4s of the class was waiting. The only exceptions were team CRDL, predictably, and multiple Faunus, not that Six could blame them. While he was waiting, Six's mind wandered off again, back to the riddle.

" _The green man leaves the shining beacon for the sands of time…"_ Six thought to himself, before leaning out of line and looking ahead. The first thing his eye landed on was Oobleck's green hair.

" _Green man…"_ Six thought, before it suddenly clicked. _"When the Ursa is killed in Forever Fall, Oobleck will leave Beacon for Vacuo!"_ he realized. Six turned around to face Allie, and mouthed "we need to talk later, it's important" to her, and she nodded. Six turned back around, and moved up in the line.

* * *

 **7:00 PM**

* * *

Six was sitting out on the balcony, watching the light rainfall. Allie appeared right beside him, leaning on the railing. _"Hey, Six. What was that thing you wanted to tell me earlier?"_ she asked, twirling a hologram of a knife around her fingers.

Six sighed. "I finally figured out the riddle." he said, looking up at the shattered moon.

Allie stopped twirling the knife. _"Oh?"_

Six turned to her. "When the Ursa is killed in Forever Fall, Oobleck will leave Beacon for Vacuo."

Allie looked thoughtful for a minute. _"Wasn't the riddle supposed to be a clue as to how we're getting back to Earth?"_ she asked.

Six nodded. "Yeah, but I don't think we're going back just yet."

Allie cocked her head to the side. _"Why not?"_

"Because my fate's tied to Ruby's, apparently." Six said, assuming Allie knew this already.

" _Since when?"_ Allie asked.

"Since the day before Initiation."

" _Why didn't you tell me when we had that chat in the forest?"_

"Slipped my mind."

Allie sighed, and held her head in her hands. _"Six, what am I going to do with you? If you forget something like that with me around, you'd probably forget how to breathe if I left."_ she said, annoyed.

Six snickered. "Probably, but then again, I know you wouldn't leave me willingly." he said, staring at the moon.

" _How do you know that I wouldn't?"_ Allie asked, before staring at the knife she was still holding.

Six turned to her. "I know you well enough that you wouldn't leave me over some petty argument, and you and I need each other. My body would practically explode without you keeping the augs in check, and you would have been scrapped or sold off to some collector if it weren't for me protecting you, both here and in the Mojave. Besides that, people here aren't exactly fond of smart AIs like you. You'd be found out within a week, and only god knows what would be done to you for the simple crime of existing." Six said, watching Allie's expressions. "Regardless, we're in this together. We have been since I first put you together at X-13, and if I'm being perfectly honest, you're the better one in this little relationship we've got going on." he said, before looking down at the Beacon grounds.

Allie looked curious. _"What do you mean by that, Six?"_

Six sighed, and pulled out his remaining bottle of whiskey from the suit's duster. "I mean that in the three years we've been partners, it's been me getting us into deep shit. I brought you with me to Frosthill on an ill-conceived revenge plan and nearly die for my stupidity, I nearly get killed in the Divide by Tunnelers, I agreed to duel Boone in South Vegas and nearly die _again,_ and I almost get killed when we checked the damage to both Dry Wells and the Long 15. To top it all off, I'm a mentally disturbed, cynical, alcohol abusing fuckhead with a death wish who barely counts as a human being." Six said, pulling his helmet back to take a swig, before tossing the bottle off the balcony. "You, on the other hand, you've been incredibly supportive of my bullshit. Where Cass, or Veronica, or Russell, or fuck, even Hope would have told me to stop acting like a fucking moron and _**think**_ about what I'm doing, you've been there and helped me get through my shitstorms of stupid. So, thanks for being there for me." Six said, resting his hand on the railing.

Allie set her hand on top of his. _"Hey, we're partners, remember? It's our job to look out for each other."_ she said, smiling, before she leaned in closer. _"Besides, I don't mind you being any of those things."_ she whispered. Allie's eyes widened when she realized what she had just said, and she quickly backed off. Six, however, was more or less oblivious, much to Allie's relief.

Six coughed. "Fuck, we're way off topic. I wanted to ask you something, too."

" _Hmm?"_ Allie murmured, with a light blush on her face that quickly faded.

"You make any more progress on that theory?"

" _Not much, no."_ she replied, before going back to twirling the knife.

"Really? That's odd, even for someone like you. Do you only have one theory?" Six asked, surprised.

" _I've got multiple, actually, but only one has any amount of proof backing it up. Honestly, the easy explanation for how we got to Remnant is the Think Tank somehow did something that ended up in us getting teleported who knows how far away from Earth. That doesn't explain the anomalies, though."_

"The anomalies?" Six asked, not sure what she was referring to.

" _Remnant having Humanity as the dominant species is a big one. They're practically indistinguishable from Earth Humans, and, barring them having Aura and Semblances, the only significant mutation of Remnant Humanity would be the Faunus. Grimm can be explained away as some sort of alien species, probably, but Humanity, I'm completely stumped on for as to how they got here."_ Allie said, visibly frustrated.

"So, your theory is on the origin of humanity here on Remnant?" Six said, before yawning.

Allie nodded. _"Yeah. Whatever we find tomorrow is probably gonna make or break my theory."_

Six let out a yawn. "Right, and on that note, I'm gonna head back inside. Gonna finish up the work we got for Grimm Studies and then fuck off to bed." Six said, opening the sliding door to head back inside.

* * *

Allie was poking through some files, trying to find some more evidence for her theory. While she was doing this, she was thinking more about the now solved riddle.

When the Ursa is killed in Forever Fall, Oobleck will leave Beacon for Vacuo. That was their big riddle for how they were going to get home, but what could Vacuo possibly have that would lead them back?

She thought about the original riddle more.

" _The green man leaves the shining beacon for the sands of time…"_ Allie mumbled. She pulled up a text window with the riddle on it. _"Sands of time is Vacuo, but what does that have to do with going home?"_

Allie paused for a second. _"Sands of time."_ she said softly, before repeating it three times, progressively getting louder.

Something suddenly clicked, and Allie shuddered. _"Oh, god, I hope that's not the case."_ was the only thing she said before she entered sleep mode for the night.

* * *

 **SATURDAY  
9:30 AM**

* * *

Everyone was waiting on Oobleck to give the call to begin boarding the Airbus. Six had assumed that once the crowd gathered, they would have immediately started boarding, but apparently not.

Allie appeared on Six's visor. _"Wonder what the hold-up is."_ she commented.

Six muted the helmet microphone. "Who knows?" he replied, leaning out of the crowd to look at Oobleck, dressed in a safari outfit, but with a shemagh instead of a pith helmet, and he was currently talking with Ozpin. Six looked to his left and saw someone running up behind Oobleck.

" _Isn't that Zach?"_ Allie said.

"You mean the quartermaster's buddy? Shit, I think it is." Six replied, just as Oobleck turned around to see Zach. Ozpin walked away, and Oobleck directed the students to start boarding. "Nevermind, guess we're going now." Six said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aqui looking back at him, something clearly on her mind.

* * *

 **9:33 AM**

* * *

Six was sitting at the back of the Airbus, and he was about to have Allie pull something up on his visor, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aqui approaching.

Aqui sat adjacent to Six. "Hey, Six? You got a minute?" she asked.

Six tapped his fingers on his leg. "Yeah, but I'd prefer if you didn't call me Six in public. What's up?" he asked.

Aqui looked worried. "It's about Julius."

Oh, boy.

She sighed. "You already know that Torchwick killed our families and burned our town down, so I'm more than certain he's already told you what exactly he wants to do to Torchwick. Am I right?"

"No." Six responded.

Aqui looked surprised. "He hasn't told you anything?"

Six shook his head.

Aqui hung her head. "Then he's still keeping it between us." she said, relieved.

"Keeping what between you?"

Aqui took in a deep breath. "His desire to kill Torchwick. It's not really my place to tell you this, but you're the only one I can ask about this."

"Ask me about what?"

"How do I get him to stop chasing Torchwick? You know what it's like, chasing someone for wronging you. You know what you've paid for that, too. I want to stop Julius from repeating your mistakes." she said, hiding her face behind her bangs.

Six leaned forward. "How long's he been chasing Torchwick?"

"He's only had it on his mind since we were twelve. I've never seen so much hatred for someone in my entire life. At first it was just him calling Roman a bunch of slurs, but he got more violent as we got older. Two years ago, Roman dropped off the face of the map, and we thought he died. Julius calmed down, until the Dust store robbery a few weeks ago. He's relapsed, and he's even worse about wanting to kill Roman than he was before."

Six sighed. "So you want me to tell you how I'd deal with Julius, is that it?"

Aqui nodded.

Six leaned back in his chair. "Well, if it came down to it, I'd tell him what I'd been through for revenge. I'd tell him about how it's made me worse as a person. I'd warn him not to make the mistakes I did by going for revenge against everyone that wronged me."

Aqui looked up. "And if he ignores you?"

"Then I'd let him go. He'll realize I was right one way or another. It's just a matter of how long it takes him to accept that."

Aqui cocked her head. "You'd let him go?"

"If he doesn't want to take what I have to say at face value, then I doubt I could say anything to convince him otherwise. It'd be on him to make the choice."

Aqui hung her head again. "Thank you, Nax." she said, before excusing herself.

Six stretched. "How long is this flight, anyways?" he said, yawning.

" _Two, three hours?"_ Allie said, not sure. There was a brief silence. _"It's a three hour flight."_ Allie confirmed.

"Fuck, then in that case, I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me up when we get there." Six said, before closing his eyes.

* * *

"… _We are not your kind of people, speak a different language, we see through your lies~"_

Six slowly opened his eyes. "What are you doing?" he asked, and Allie popped up on his visor.

" _Singing to get you up. I know how much you like it when I sing, so I figured that's how I would get you up."_ she said, smiling innocently.

Six stretched and yawned. "What time is it?"

" _About twenty to one. The Airbus just landed at the excavation site two minutes ago. Everyone's getting ready to disembark."_ Allie said, and as soon as she finished, Julius poked his head around the corner.

"Heya, Nax. Didn't see you with everyone else, so Aqui told me where you were. Thought you might've died on us for a second there." he joked.

Six chuckled. "Death'd need to wait till I'm 70 and senile to have a chance in hell at taking me sleeping."

Julius smirked. "Well, in that case, maybe you'd care to join us, seeing as you're not dead?" Julius offered.

Six stood up. "You bet your ass I'm joining you guys. I didn't give up my Saturday just to screw around on an Airbus. Let's head out." Six said as he stood up, and Julius brought him to the crowd, which immediately started disembarking down the ramp. At the base of the ramp, there was an impromptu FOB with people wearing SDC uniforms milling about. Most of them wore clothing more suitable for manual labor, but some had suits on, probably supervisors or internal affairs. There were also soldiers standing guard, wearing some sort of bizarre armor with a desert camo that looked vaguely like a flak jacket, with a helmet that covered their entire face save for their mouth. On their arms were SDC armbands, and they were also carrying some stupid looking rifles that lacked a stock, had a pistol grip that not only looked ridiculous, but also looked incredibly painful to shoot, had no visible way of reloading, and had no ejection port.

" _Those are some weird looking rifles, gotta say."_ Allie commented.

Six muted the helmet microphone. "Yeah, they look stupid as hell. It's like if someone turned that piece of shit Zip .22 into an assault rifle." Six replied, staring at one of the guards.

The guard quickly noticed that he was being stared at. "Move along." was all he said, gesturing with his rifle down towards the FOB, and Six quickly moved on so as to not attract attention.

The FOB was set up at the base of a rather large sand dune, and there was a hole that went into the dune that looked wide enough to fit three troop transports. Just outside the hole, there were about six vehicles that looked like MRAPs, with the SDC emblem on the doors. The crowd eventually came to a halt, and multiple SDC employees directed students into the MRAPs. Six saw RWBY and JNPR get moved into the second and third MRAPs in the line, and he was eventually moved into the first MRAP with JAMI. They were all seated in the back, although Marshall barely fit due to his sheer size and choice of weapon. The convoy remained still for about three minutes, before Zach and Oobleck sat up front with someone from the SDC driving, and the convoy started moving into the cave.

* * *

 **12:54 PM**

* * *

The convoy eventually exited the tunnel, and came out into an absolutely massive cavern, and was at what looked like an older mining site from the days of ancient Humanity, with several excavation and digging machines marked with the SDC logo lying about the place . Curiously, there were also machines used for digging lying around the place that looked nothing like the SDC machines, however, they obviously rusted and probably way beyond repair, but it was a strange sight nonetheless. _"Since when did ancient humans have access to machinery?"_ Allie commented.

Six made sure the microphone was muted. "This place is two hundred thousand years older than the previous artifact. It's not entirely unreasonable to think in that big of a time gap, humanity somehow regressed technologically." he said, looking out the back window, and the MRAP came to a stop. Six looked ahead out of curiosity and saw what looked like a highway.

The driver of the MRAP picked up the radio. "Cars two and three, we're taking a left turn. Cars four, five, and six, you take a right turn. Collect as many samples as you can find, we'll meet back here in three hours." he said into the radio. Multiple people saying affirmative responded, and he set the radio back down, and made the left turn onto the highway, with the second and third MRAPs in tow, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth MRAPs going the opposite direction.

As the convoy moved down the highway, they kept passing by what looked like cars. Very few of them were more than just the body. "What's up with these things on the road?" Julius commented.

"Pretty sure they're cars. Can't tell though, there's barely anything left." he said.

As the ride continued, they eventually went under an old, decayed overpass, and the environment was getting progressively more urban. Something about this place felt… wrong, but Six couldn't put his finger on it. Eventually, the convoy came to a large concrete wall. The driver picked the radio up again. "Convoy, move around the left side of the wall until we find the gate. We'll disembark there." he said, setting the radio back down.

Shortly afterwards, they found the gate, and the driver pulled the MRAP onto the curb. The other two MRAPs pulled up, and everyone got out. Zach was immediately in front of the gate with a bag at his side, trying to figure out how to open it. He was currently trying a variety of tools to force the gate open. "Maybe if I.. nah, that won't work." he said, rummaging through his bag.

Julius walked up behind him, drew Thunderstick, and transformed it into Bushwacker and Chopper. He then sliced at the center of the gate, cutting a previously unnoticed padlock off. "You're welcome." he said, a shit eating grin visible on his face.

Zach stood up and tried to push the gate open, to no avail. Ruby stepped forward, and presented Crescent Rose. "May I?" she asked, and Six wasn't entirely sure what she meant.

Zach looked at the driver, who hesitated, before nodding. Ruby unfolded Crescent Rose, and then struck the gate in a downward strike. She then jumped in the air, and shot Crescent Rose, which tore through the rusted gate, sending Ruby flying off into the distance. On the plus side, the gate was now opened, albeit torn. Oobleck, the driver, and Zach filtered through, and then Six, JAMI, and RWBY. Oobleck pointed his flashlight down at the ground, and examined something. He ran the flashlight around the general area before speaking. "Interesting! It appears that this mark on the ground is similar to that of a human person!" Oobleck remarked.

Zach looked over to where Oobleck was pointing his light. "That's not similar to a human, that _is_ a human. Or it was, anyways. Look at how the body's laid out. It's like they got knocked down, and then something just... incinerated the body and left behind this scorch mark." Zach said, acting like a crime scene investigator.

"But what could possibly be powerful enough to do something like that? Not even Atlas has an energy weapon that can outright incinerate a body and only leave a scorch mark." the driver remarked.

Zach shined his light around the area, revealing that the area was littered with skeletons, buildings that looked burned or even bombed out, and there were more scorch marks on the pavement and even on some of the building walls. "I have no idea." was all he said. Six's feelings of déjà vu were only getting worse.

The group continued up the street for about three blocks, up to a four way intersection, before Julius nearly tripped on something. Zach quickly flashed his light over to him to check on him. "You okay, man?" he asked, concerned.

Julius brushed himself off. "Yeah, I'm fine." was what he said before he checked what he nearly tripped on. He felt around the object, before grabbing under it to lift it up. When he did, Zach flashed the light on the object. "Looks like a piece of a neon sign." he said, brushing the dust and sand off of it. The sign was very clearly a capital E.

Zach flashed the light elsewhere. "I think I see some more." he said, pointing to three other similar bumps on the road. "Ruby, Izzy, Yang, grab those three and bring them over here, I want to get a better look at them." Zach requested, and the three complied.

* * *

 **(A/N: Play Lament for Private Jenkins from Halo CE)**

* * *

The pieces they brought over were a D, an F, and an S. Zach tried to put them together to see if there was any meaning. "DEFS? FEDS, maybe?" he mumbled out loud. Zach turned around and looked up, and spotted an arch with more letters on it. Zach ran the flashlight over the other letters, and the sign read RE I E.

Julius kneeled down. "Looks like these ones fell off from there. Probably the name of the city." he said, before trying to rearrange the fallen letters into an actual word. It took him a bit, but Julius finally figured it out. "Think I've got it. This place was called… Freeside, looks like." he said, rubbing some more sand off of the letter.

Six's heart stopped, and he suddenly felt very uneasy. He flicked the helmet vision to night vision, and looked up to his left, and there she was.

The Lucky 38.

" _Six…"_ Allie said, audibly trembling. She appeared on the helmet visor, tearing up. _"I don't think we're going back to the Mojave."_ she weakly said.

Six muted the helmet microphone again. "Turn on the cloaking field." he said, trying to hide his emotional response to the situation. Allie did so, and Six quietly slinked away towards where the train station used to be.

* * *

 **(A/N: Play One is All, All is One from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)**

* * *

Six turned the corner, and sure enough, the old train station was still there. Six looked further to the left, and the Shitbox Supreme was also still there. Six got closer to check the damage, circling the car as he did so.

The windows were all gone, probably shot out, the rear left and front right rims were both missing, while the front left and rear right rims had no tires, the hood was open, with the entire engine block missing. All of the seats had been rotted away, the M60 and the ammo belts were gone, pretty much everything on the dash was gone. The trunk had a big hole blasted in it with all of the stuff stored there missing, and the body was also heavily rusted, and showed signs of having been shot at, probably by a 9mm, judging by the size of the holes.

Six sat down on the left side of the Trueno, and banged the back of his head against the door. Allie appeared next to him, a depressed look in her eyes. _"Six… I really, honestly, truly hoped that this wasn't the case, but it's reality. I never ever expected to say this, but… we've travelled_ _ **forward**_ _in time."_ Allie said, barely holding back tears.

Six just stared up at where the sky would have been. "How do we go back?" he said, a blank expression on his face.

Allie teared up even more. _"That's the thing, Six._ _ **We can't.**_ _"_

Six turned to look at her. "Why not?"

Allie tried to wipe away some of her tears. _"Just after the Great War, when I was still in testing, and when Big Mountain still had human scientists, I overheard some scientists chatting about how they were running an experiment to travel back in time to prevent the bombs from falling."_

"And?"

" _When the time came to do the experiment, the guy they were sending back had a transmitter that was supposed to monitor what happened to him during the trip. When they sent him back, the transmitter immediately reported that he was dead, and then the signal was cut off. Everyone involved concluded that backwards time travel was impossible, and they scrapped the project as a precaution to avoid creating a paradox."_ she said, choking up, with tears flowing down her face.

Six stared at the building the cult used to be based out of. "That's nice."

Allie stared at him, shocked. _"'That's nice'?! We're stuck here, we can't go back to the Mojave as we knew it, and all you have to say is 'That's nice'?!"_ she yelled, before collapsing on top of Six. _"All I wanted to do was to go home with you… and now we can't, or we'll die…"_ she said through tears, weakly pounding on Six's chest.

Six took his helmet off. "Look at me." he commanded, and Allie pulled herself off of Six to do so. "Don't mistake my lack of an immediate reaction for me not giving a shit, 'cause I'm still processing all of this. It's a lot to take in, finding out that our home's basically been destroyed, and we're stuck thousands of years in the future with no way back, believe me." Six said, giving off a thousand yard stare. "I don't know whether to be pissed or upset, but right now, best thing we can do is... fuck, I don't know, move on, I guess." Six said, not entirely sure where to go from there. This was the first time in his entire life where he wasn't exactly sure how to proceed.

Allie took a moment to take in what Six had said, and she just fell back on top of Six and cried into his shoulder. Six just hugged her to try and comfort her, or at least, as well as one could hug a hologram without a physical body. Eventually, Allie just stopped crying, and her hologram disappeared.

Six slowly stood back up, and headed back to the intersection.

* * *

When Six came back, everyone was missing from the intersection. He pulled out his scroll and checked the local connections. Everyone had their scroll on, but Six couldn't see them. He tapped Aqui's icon and messaged her.

'Where is everyone?' he messaged. Aqui almost immediately started responding

Twenty seconds passed, and the scroll beeped, confirming that Aqui sent her message; 'jules, iz, marsh and I are all at the kings, oobleck zach and the driver went into the old mormon fort, no idea where jnpr went, rwby went to mick and ralphs i THINK'

Six turned night vision back on and looked further up the road, and he spotted the King's School of Impersonation, boarded up and clearly suffering from heavy structural damage. Six folded the Scroll back up and was about to set it inside his duster, but it beeped again. The new message read; 'btw, the king left some holotapes 4 u, might want look at them'

Six folded the scroll back up and set it inside his duster before heading to the headquarters of the old Freeside gang.

* * *

Six stepped into the lobby of the School of Impersonation. Littered around the floor were skeletons, some looked like they had been hit with a blunt weapon, others clearly had been shot while alive. Marshall was picking through some things behind the receptionist desk. It took him a bit to notice Six had entered, and when he finally did notice, Marshall just waved at him. "Hey, Marshall, where's Aqui?" Six asked.

Marshall paused for a second. "Third floor." was all he said before going back to searching through the rubble.

Six headed through the stage room and up the stairs. He passed by Izzy and Julius chatting while they poking through the room Sergio used to give haircuts in. Julius noticed him and waved, and Six waved back before continuing up the stairs.

Six found Aqui in the King's old room, where the groupies used to be.

She was sitting on the left side of what little remained of the heart shaped bed. "Where are the holotapes?" Six asked, and Aqui pointed to the chair the King usually sat in, but there was a skeleton with a bullet hole in the side of the skull. On the table where the ashtray normally as, there were two holotapes. Six pulled out his Pip-Boy 2500 and opened the back of it to slot the bottom holotape in, and it immediately started playing as soon as he closed the Pip-Boy.

The King's voice came through. "Six came down today to have a little chat about those cultists that shot one of my boys the other day. There was some sort of earthquake or something a few minutes ago, and it scared the devil outta everyone." the King said, before audibly flicking a lighter to light a cigar. "Musta scared the devil out of Six, too, cause he came running in trying to find me. Never in my life have I seen a man so panicked. He came in, I told him where the cult was, and then he was off, just like that." he said, snapping his fingers at the end. Six heard the King lean back in a chair, and then he heard the familiar bass boosted noise start up, quickly accompanied by the air raid sirens and sounds of thunder. Six heard the King jump up out of his chair and quickly move away from wherever the holotape was being recorded. "What in the blazes is going on?" the King said, further away now.

The tape ended, and Six quietly pulled out the holotape and set it inside his duster. He then picked up the second holotape, and inserted it.

The King's voice sounded out again, and not only did he sound incredibly distressed, he sounded sick. "I don't know how long it's been since I recorded a holotape. It feels like it's been years, but I know it couldn't be less than a week." The King said, before coughing violently. "Everything's so fuzzy, and I don't know what's going on. After Six came in, however long ago that was, there was some sort of big firestorm that rolled through Vegas. There was a big sound that was, I dunno, I guess if I were a prayin' man I'd say it was the like thunder of God, but I don't know for sure, but after the firestorm cleared through Vegas, everything fell apart. Most of my boys were outside, and they just got vaporized. Turned into shadows on the sidewalk and walls." he said, before taking a moment to breathe. "Freeside's total chaos right now, and I can't get anyone through to the Strip. My boys, the ones who were inside, at least… I don't know what's happening. Some of them are shooting fire and ice out of their hands, others can feel their skin molting, like a snake. Some of them look like animals, now, too. Me? I've been vomiting my guts out since that… _thing_ hit. Must've taken a bad hit of radiation. I'm not sure why, or how, but I do know what's gonna happen next." the King said.

Six heard a slide being racked. "May God have mercy on my soul." he finished, and then there was a single gunshot, with the sound of a gun and shell casing hitting the floor soon following. The tape stopped there.

Six slumped back against the ruined Sarsaparilla machine, head in his hands.

"Who was that?" Julius asked.

"The King." Aqui instinctively replied. It took her a minute to process that she just made a mistake.

Six slowly looked up, and saw Julius in the doorway, staring at Aqui. "That's a pretty odd name. How'd you know that?"

Six was about to respond with a lie that his name was on the back of the tapes, but Aqui had him covered. "Found them in a safe under the bed with a note from someone named Julie Farkas to someone named 'The King'. I'm taking a wild guess and assuming this is him talking." she said, lying through her teeth.

Julius leaned on the doorway. "I know you well enough to know when you're lying, Aqui."

Or not. Shit.

"His name's on the back of the tapes." Six said, hoping Julius wouldn't be able to see that it wasn't.

"Nax, it's almost pitch black in here, and even I can see that his name's not on the back of those tapes."

Fuck.

"What's with all the secrecy? It's just a tape." Julius asked, quickly getting suspicious of both of them.

Aqui and Six looked at each other, not sure what to do, but before they could respond, Julius' scroll went off. He pulled it out and checked it. "Ah, shit, we need to get back to the intersection, or Oobleck'll have our heads. We'll talk about this later." he said, putting the scroll away and heading back down the steps. Six and Aqui quickly followed him out.

" _Close call."_ Allie commented.

* * *

The group returned to the intersection. Zach, Oobleck, the driver, and RWBY were all there, with JNPR showing up just after JAMI. The driver pulled out a scroll, fiddled with it a bit, and then put it away. "I believe it's time for us to move further into the city." the driver said, tapping away at a Scroll. The driver led the group forward, up to the old checkpoint to the Strip.

The first MRAP driver flashed his light around the checkpoint, repeatedly landing on the husks of long since destroyed Securitrons. "What are these?" he asked, poking at one of the torn arms.

"Looks like these things were security robots. Might have moved around on one wheel, like a unicycle, although that's incredibly impractical. They don't even look that effective anymore, at least in comparison to what Atlas has on offer." the second driver commented, tapping on another destroyed Securitron a few times.

Six felt personally attacked by that one. _"This guy's got no fucking clue what he's on about, a Securitron would easily smash whatever infantry Atlas could throw at it."_ Six thought to himself.

"Look at how blocky they are. They're so… unrefined. Ugly, even. Ancient Remnant must have had a terribly low standard for robotics." the third driver snidely commented.

" _Okay, now they're just being mean."_ Allie said, offended.

The group eventually moved past the checkpoint and onto the Strip itself, through the destroyed checkpoint gate. Directly in their path was the collapsed Strip sign from the checkpoint behind them. The second driver ran his light over the remains. "'The Strip', huh?"

"Must be a city district." Zach commented, running his light over the remains of the building that used to be Gomorrah. The entire front and right sides of the building had collapsed inwards, with the old sign laying where the courtyard used to be, and the wall was knocked down, exposing a way in. The sign on the actual building itself had collapsed forward, and knocked down the overhang, rendering the front entrance unusable. The three SDC drivers headed into the courtyard to poke around. Zach led JNPR and RWBY further up the Strip, to where the Tops and Ultra-Luxe were, and Oobleck led JAMI and Six up the steps to the Lucky 38. The damage to the Lucky 38 wasn't nearly as bad as Gomorrah, thankfully. Two of the prods that stuck out from where the cocktail lounge was looked like they had been sheared off, the sign was shattered all over the front steps, and some parts of the base had small chunks blown out of it. There was also a pile of destroyed Securitrons just by the entrance, probably all of the ones that had been on the Strip when the Think Tank ran their experiment. Strangely enough, the big doors to the Lucky 38's main gambling hall were shut tight, despite them having been open when Six left.

Oobleck flashed a light around to try and find a way in. "How strange, there doesn't appear to be an entrance anywhere." he commented, before taking a sip from his thermos.

"Maybe there's another way in?" Izzy commented, looking around.

Six decided to make life easier for everyone. "There's a trench to our left that curves into the building. That's probably the only way in." he said, pointing to his left with his thumb.

Oobleck practically teleported to where Six was pointing. "So there is." was all he said, taking another sip from his thermos, before heading into the trench. Everyone from JAMI quickly followed him.

At the very bottom of the trench was a large garage door. Six stepped forward and stuck his hands underneath the door to try and pull it up. Even with his cybernetic enhancements, Six could barely lift the garage door up, and was visibly struggling. He let go and stepped back. "Marshall, gimme a hand here, would you?" Six said, gesturing for Marshall to come help him. Marshall sat Ripper down next to him, and put his hands under the door. "On three."

"One."

"Two."

"Three!" Six shouted, and both he and Marshall pulled the door up almost instantly. On Marshall's side, the door was actually cracked a bit. Everyone quickly moved through, with Six and Marshall at the back, and the door surprisingly didn't slam down behind them when they let go.

The first thing Six noticed about the Lucky 38's parking garage was the absolutely rancid stench. Even though Six was wearing a gas mask which filtered any noxious gases, that didn't mean the stench was totally removed. Izzy and Aqui both started gagging, and quickly covered their mouths and noses to minimize exposure, Julius didn't have an immediate reaction, but he did pinch his nose, and Oobleck quickly put his shemagh around his face. The only one without any reaction was Marshall. "Smells like decomp." Marshall commented.

"Nobody has been here in over three hundred thousand years, Marshall. While I will admit that this place is remarkably intact for its age, I very seriously doubt anything has recently died down here, let alone recently enough to still be decomposing." Oobleck said, taking another sip from his thermos.

"Just saying."

The group continued forward, back towards where the armory was. Six couldn't really take his eyes off of the vehicles in the garage. The Shermans he had captured from the NCR were in less than admirable shape, although they could still be repaired, probably. The very few Bradleys and M60s in the possession of Vegas were in a worse spot, though. Some of the Bradleys were missing their TOW launchers and their ERA, and the M60s had their gun barrels cut down to just the bore evacuator, and that was just what Six could see on the outside. The insides of the vehicles were probably all sorts of fucked. The Willys Jeeps, some of the Humvees, at least one of the M113s, and most of the Hilux Technicals all looked salvageable, though.

Six was so busy looking at his old collection of armored vehicles that he failed to noticed he had stepped onto something soft. _"Uh, Six? You might want to check where you're walking…"_ Allie said quietly.

"Huh?" Six responded, before looking down. His boots were covered in some sort of fleshy mass, and the smell of decomposition was significantly stronger here. Six lifted his right leg up, and whatever it was stuck to his boot like glue. "What the fuck?"

And then the mass _**pulsed**_ , like a beating heart. Six knew something bad was about to happen, so he quietly drew the Survivalist's Rifle and proceeded forward. "I've got a real bad feeling about this…" Izzy said, although her voice was muffled since her hand was covering her mouth. Sure enough, the mass started rapidly contorting, convulsing, and shifting. Everyone stopped, and massive, fleshy tentacles suddenly burst out of the mass, and wrapped themselves around everyone from JAMI, as well as Oobleck, pulling them to the ground. All Six could hear was Aqui's and Izzy's muffled screaming, which eventually died down. Six ran up to where Julius was held down and pulled out his knife to try and cut him free. Julius was still alive, as were the others, but Six couldn't cut through the tentacle's flesh.

" _Six, behind you!"_ Allie suddenly shouted, and before Six could react, he felt something hard impact his head, and he was sent flying. Six landed near the armory vault door, quickly got up, and readied the Survivalist's Rifle again. There was a single, lone figure in a jumpsuit approaching, and Six shined the rifle's light on him.

Whoever this person was, they were clearly a Ghoul of some kind. "Glad you could make it, Boss." the figure said in a raspy, Mexican accent.

Six half lowered the rifle. "Raul?"

"Glad to see you remember my face, Boss." Raul said, a hint of anger in his voice. Raul balled his left hand into a fist, and Six noticed the tentacles tightening around the others, and he immediately realized Raul was controlling the tentacles.

"What the hell are you doing, Raul?! Let them go!"

"What if I don't? Are you going to run out on them when they need you most, just like you ran out on us?" Raul asked, venom dripping from his voice.

Six kept the rifle level with Raul's face, not responding.

Raul just sighed, and his body was suddenly encased in a hard, chitinous material. His right arm turned into a long claw, and his left arm expanded to form a buckler shield, and Raul lunged at Six, trying to stab him.

Six had the reaction time to sidestep, and he shot three rounds into Raul, all of them bouncing off of his armor. Six jumped on top of one of the Hiluxes and shot a few more rounds at Raul, who raised his buckler to defend himself, with the shield absorbing all the bullets. Six tried to fire again.

 _Click._

Fuck.

Six quickly hit the mag release and fished around in his duster for a fresh mag, and he grabbed a new magazine labelled with the letters FYS in red, slammed it into the gun, and pulled the charging handle back, and continued shooting.

The FYS rounds were chipping off bits of Raul's armor, but the damage was quickly being repaired.

"Allie, cloak, now!" Six commanded, and he instantly turned invisible before jumping off of the Hilux, just as a flesh whip whizzed by where his head used to be. Six quietly snuck away from the fight to try and think of a better plan, and he sat up against the back of one of the Bradleys to catch his breath.

Allie muted Six's helmet microphone. _"His armor's self repairing. Your guns aren't doing squat to him."_ she said, stressed out that they were being attacked by a former friend.

"I have eyes, thank you _very fucking much_ for noticing." Six replied with a considerable amount of sarcasm, considering the situation.

There was pure silence while they figured out what the hell to actually do, with the only sounds in the garage being that of Raul moving between vehicles. Eventually, Allie spoke up.

" _What if you were to hit him with explosives?"_

"I'm not risking collapsing the roof in on us." Six said with his voice lowered to try and not attract Raul. There was a brief, sickly squelching noise, and then the sound of something sliding around. A puddle of the fleshy mass poked around the side of the Bradley, and moved the furthest part of it like a head, until it spotted Six. The mass then transformed into a hand, and lunged after Six, but he got out of the way and repositioned, pumping a few more rounds into the mass. "What the fuck happened to Raul?!"

The mass kept chasing after Six, sliding around on the floor like gelatin. Another fist was formed by the mass, and it stretched to hit Six, but he shot it out of the air. Some of the flesh fell onto the puddle, and was reabsorbed, but the pieces that didn't hit the puddle simple turned into a pile of dust.

Six realized how to properly kill… whatever it was that Raul had become. Six kept baiting out Raul to shoot limbs at him so he could shoot them off, although after the third time, Raul finally caught on, and the fleshy mass slinked away underneath one of the M60s, into the shadows.

Six crept between the armored vehicles, keeping the rifle half raised. When he stepped past a Bradley, he felt something wet reach around and grab his ankle, and then it tightened its grip. Before Six could position the rifle to shoot the limb off, someone else beat him to it.

Four gunshots rang out, all of them 12.7 shots. Six looked behind him and saw a lone figure wearing the NCR Veteran Ranger Armor in desert camo with a glowing green visor, holding an M16A1 with wood furniture that still had the barrel smoking. He just saluted, before going prone and shooting a few more rounds under the vehicle next to Six. The piece of flesh that had grabbed onto Six's leg had seized up and then fallen to the ground with a resounding thud, before it crumbled into dust, revealing half of a set of lungs, and then that too crumbled into dust.

Some of the fleshy mass crawled out from under the Bradley, and Six kept the rifle trained on it, but it ignored him, and instead reformed into Raul, leaning up against the Bradley's tracks.

He weakly looked over to Six. "Oh… hey, Boss." was what the old ghoul said, before coughing up blood. "When did you get here?"

Six took his helmet off and set it at his side. "Not too long ago."

Raul coughed up even more blood.

"Look, Boss, I've spent God knows how long tending to this garage…" Raul said, taking a deep breath. "This old man's not long for this world anymore, so the least you could do for me is take care of it." he said through labored breaths.

"I'll do that. Promise."

Raul started coughing violently. "If you don't, I'll haunt your ass from the grave, Boss." he said with a weak chuckle. Raul's breathing slowed. "Rafaela, I'm coming… home…" Raul said with an audible exhale, before his body went limp, eyes closed. It then slowly crumbled into dust. Six stood back up, and moved back where everyone was held by the tentacles. Unsurprisingly, the tentacles were gone, as was the fleshy mass that made up the floor. Everyone from JAMI was still getting their bearings though, barring Oobleck, who was nowhere to be seen.

"I feel like I've just been violated." Izzy said, rubbing her forehead.

Aqui was running her semblance over herself, likely checking for injuries. When she finished, she went to Julius to check him, and then Izzy. Marshall kept feeling around his chest. "Pretty sure my ribs all got crushed." he said, still feeling around.

Aqui quickly ran over to him and checked him. "You're fine, walk it off, big guy." she joked.

Six felt a tap on his shoulder, and he turned around to see Oobleck standing behind him, staring intently at Six. "That… creature. Whatever it was, it talked like it knew you, and you knew it, despite nobody having been down here in hundreds of thousands of years. Care to explain?" Oobleck said, still calm despite having been constricted and strangled mere moments ago.

Six sighed. "…Alright, well, I know how utterly insane I'm going to sound when I say this, but _please_ believe me when I say I'm not pulling your leg…"

Oobleck raised an eyebrow.

Six lowered his voice so that JAMI couldn't hear him. "I'm a time traveler."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard." Oobeck said, before lifting his shemagh to take another sip from his thermos.

"You want proof?" Six asked, before pointing towards the armory door. "Behind that vault door is an armory full of guns, and at the very back of that armory, there's a hidden panel in the wall with a katana behind it."

Oobleck just raised his eyebrow, before heading over to examine the vault door, and Six followed him. Oobleck's thermos then turned into some sort of lance, and he pointed it towards the frame of the vault door. "I would advise everyone here to stand back while I cut through this door, unless you'd like to have hot metal in your eyes." he said, before igniting his thermos, and he began cutting through the locks on the door, likely with some kind of Dust combination that was similar to thermite.

After several minutes, the door cracked open, and everyone stepped inside.

Six's guns in the armory were in considerably better shape than the vehicles were. The metal parts on most of them only had a small amount of rust, and the wooden stocks on the guns that had them only looked like they needed to be refinished. Worst case scenario, they would need to be replaced, which shouldn't be too much trouble.

"Look at this place!" Julius exclaimed. "It's like a museum for gun lovers, except these are guns nobody's seen in who knows how long!" he said, clearly enjoying himself as he picked up one of the Hi-Powers on the table and pulled the slide back to do a brass check.

"Ruby'd probably die on the spot if she came in here." Aqui said, dusting off the visor of one of the T-51b suits.

Oobleck continued further to the back, towards the room Six kept his prized guns and his armor, and Six followed him inside.

Oobleck was simply standing there, looking at the wall. Six moved to the desk, leaned over, and felt around for the panel. He eventually felt it, and pushed one side in so he could pull the panel out. Mounted directly behind the panel was Six's katana he fought Lanius with, left completely untouched, even after literally thousands of years. Six pulled it out and unsheathed the blade to examine it. Perhaps Six shouldn't have been surprised, but the Saturnite blade was completely untarnished. Something was… off about it, though. Six turned the katana over on its other side, and saw what looked like two runes engraved at the base of the blade.

The runes read '影燃,' but Six had no idea what it meant. "That's new." he commented, examining the runes further.

"What's new?" Oobleck asked, examining the blade.

Six tapped the runes, careful to not cut his fingers off on the sharp edge of the Saturnite blade. "These. They weren't here the last time I used this."

Allie appeared next to Six and examined the runes. _"Hang on a second… those runes look like they're written in Japanese…"_ she said, getting close to the runes.

"The hell's a Japanese?" Six asked, completely serious.

Allie gave him annoyed look. _"_ _ **Japan**_ _was a country the Chinese took over before the bombs dropped._ _ **Japanese**_ _was their language, which I know a good bit of."_ she said before going back to analyzing the runes.

"Since when?"

" _Since forever, it's just never been relevant 'till now. If you want the 'why,' I was designed specifically for operations in Japan. I was given knowledge on most of the Japanese language so that I could translate for my operator with rebels, but the bombs dropped before I was finished, so the scientists at Big Mountain cut that short and geared me towards other things."_ Allie explained.

"Okay, so if you know the language, what's it say?" Six asked.

Allie didn't respond, and instead started focusing. After around ten seconds, she stopped.

" _Seems like it literally translates to Shadow Burn, although it would probably be more correct as Shadows Burn."_ she said, running her finger along the length of the blade.

"Could the name be referring to the Grimm?" Oobleck wondered.

Allie shook her head. _"That's not an unreasonable guess, but it's wrong. This first kanji,"_ Allie said, pointing to the first rune. _"is Kage, which translates to shadow, but not like an apparition or a vengeful spirit, it literally means 'a shadow'. If it were referring to the Grimm, it would probably be the kanji for Tamashi, which translates more or less to spirit, which would fit the Grimm more than Kage does. Either way, whoever wrote this Japanese into the katana probably doesn't know that much about the language, so it's not that big of a deal."_ Allie said, before shrugging at the end.

Oobleck regained his composure. "Well, Nax… I suppose you are indeed a time traveler, as ridiculous as that sounds. However, you are aware of the implications this carries, correct?" he asked.

Six shrugged. "Am I gonna get expelled or something?"

Oobleck shook his head. "No, but Ozpin will want to hear of this. I must admit, I am curious about what Remnant was like during your time, judging by the conversation you just had with your partner, but that will need to be saved for later." Oobleck said, before turning back to the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get JAMI back to the vehicles for medical examination. I would rather be safe than sorry with my students. We'll still be here for a while, so feel free to explore your… home, or whatever this place was to you." he said, and with that, he left the room and took JAMI out of the armory.

Six slumped back in his old chair, and Allie stood next to him.

" _About Raul…"_ she started. Six didn't respond. _"He said you abandoned everyone."_

"I don't think that was Raul speaking, Allie."

" _What do you mean?"_

"He seemed, I dunno, delirious, I guess? It's like he wasn't all there. When he was dying, though, he acted more like the Raul I knew."

"… _Maybe we should go."_ Allie suggested.

Six shook his head. "Nah, at the very least I want closure on everyone I knew."

Six got up, put his helmet back on, sheathed the katana and slung it over his back, and headed towards the elevator near the entrance to the garage.

When Six actually got to the elevator, the elevator had evidently crashed to the bottom of the shaft, as there was a fair bit of rubble surrounding the doors, which were slanted, but open. Six crawled over the pile and slid past the doors, and grabbed onto the ladder in the shaft and started climbing his way to the Presidential Suite. On the way up, he noticed that the casino floor's doors were locked open, and it looked like someone had already been there. Recently. Six made a mental note to check that floor when he was on his way out.

* * *

 **(A/N: Play the Mantis' Hymn from MGS1 for the entirety of this segment in the Lucky 38, find a 10 hour version or loop it, whatever works for you)**

* * *

Six pulled himself up through the open elevator doors and into the main room of the Presidential Suite, and Allie turned the helmet's night vision on. The whole place was in terrible shape. The rugs and carpets had been torn up, bullet holes from various calibers riddled the walls, there was a lot of what looked like dried blood on the walls and the floor, most of the furniture had been completely destroyed, there was now a hole in the wall that separated the master bedroom, and there were also skeletons littering the floor in a variety of states, with varying amounts of what might have been armor at one point.

" _Look at this place…"_ Allie said quietly, shocked that the presidential suite was in such a state.

Six carefully stepped over the skeletons that littered the floor, and checked the Master Bedroom. There were even more skeletons in there, the bed was split in half with one of the chandeliers on top of it. On top of the bed were two skeletons, one a person, and the other, a dog. Six got closer to the bed, and picked up the chandelier and tossed it to get a better look at the bodies. The dog was missing a considerable portion of its skull, but it didn't look like it was damaged, more like it was surgically removed. Six knew right away this was Rex's body. The human, though, was clearly female, and was wearing what looked like it may have been a jacket of some kind before, but was barely worthy of being called rags now. In her left hand was an empty bottle of what was probably whiskey, and in her right, what was once an over/under shotgun.

"Jesus, Cass…" was all Six said as he stared at the body. "She'd always joked that she'd die with a bottle in her hand… never thought she was serious about it." he remarked somberly. Six carefully took the shotgun out of her hands, and walked out into the recreation room, dropping the shotgun at a clear spot in the main room before he entered the recreation room.

The skeletons in the recreation room were mostly focused around the entrance, and Six wondered why, until he noticed the pool table had been flipped on its side as a makeshift piece of cover, with smaller tables flanking it. Six crept over the bodies, and behind the table laid an absurdly large skeleton, with the remains of an M4 in its giant hands. The skeleton was wearing what used to be overalls, and the skeleton was riddled with bullet holes.

"… _Lily?"_ Allie quietly asked.

Six didn't even say anything. He just stared at the bare skeleton of the Nightkin grandmother. He took the M4 out of her hands, careful not to disturb her eternal rest. She had earned it. He exited the room, and sat the M4 next to the shotgun.

Six checked the guest room next, and saw most of the beds had also been flipped over to serve as makeshift cover, with at least one skeleton still pointing a gun at the door, with a big hole its hat. He vaulted over the beds, and found even more skeletons of his companions. The skeleton closest to the wall was wearing longer clothes, although they were effectively rags now, and he was clutching his stomach with his left hand. In his right hand was a single Glock 86.

Allie was getting choked up. _"Arcade… no…."_ was all she said. Six pulled the Glock out of Arcade's hand. The middle skeleton was a woman, slumped over, and she was wearing something that also looked like a jacket. Around her neck was a single green gem of some kind, and she was holding a rusted Winchester City Killer shotgun.

Hope.

Six took her City Killer and her necklace, pocketing the necklace as a memento.

The third skeleton was wearing the remains of a cowboy hat and leather vest. Six immediately recognized the skeleton as Vincent. "At least he got to go out in a blaze of glory like he always wanted." Six commented as he grabbed the hunting rifle from Vincent.

That marked Cass, Rex, Lily, Vincent, Hope, and Arcade off as dead. The only remaining companions he hadn't found yet were Veronica, Russell, and ED-E. Six got up and checked the rest of the guest room. In laying right next to a deteriorated vase was ED-E. Six walked over and picked up the eyebot, and turned it around to find his maintenance panel. Six fished through his duster for a screwdriver, found one, and unscrewed the panel with surprising ease. Six then pulled out his Pip-Boy and detached the diagnostic cable from the back. "Allie, I'm gonna hook the suit up to ED-E. I want you to check his systems and see if he's salvageable."

" _Will do."_

Six pushed one end of the cable into ED-E and fiddled with it until it made an audible click. He then took the other end and attached it to his suit so that Allie could check on ED-E.

Allie appeared in front of him, looking over the Eyebot with intense curiosity. _"From the readouts I'm seeing, his body isn't salvageable. His AI and memories, on the other hand, are. There's a problem, though."_

"What's the problem?"

" _Significant portions of his code are corrupted. I'll need to repair him on my end to have him working again, and even then, he'll pretty much be tethered to me."_

"Do it."

Allie nodded. _"Downloading now, this should only take a minute."_ she said, before disappearing. While Six waited, he wondered about what had happened. Vegas had obviously collapsed on itself once the storm hit, and his companions were all dead, even if Six hadn't exactly confirmed it yet. The amount of bodies in the Presidential Suite was considerable. Maybe the Three Families rose up against him once the storm passed, and his companions defended the Lucky 38 to the last man. _"Done."_ Allie eventually said.

Six detached the cord from ED-E's body, and from his suit, and re-attached it to the Pip-Boy, setting it inside his duster. Six got up and checked the bathroom and kitchen, and found nothing, so he sat down next to the weapons of his companions.

Allie appeared next to him, sitting down. _"Are you alright?"_ she asked, concerned for her partner's wellbeing.

Six shrugged. "At this point, I don't even know. Vegas is gone and destroyed, my friends are all dead, and I killed the last one just under half an hour ago. I should be crying my eyes out, but… I don't think I have any tears to shed. Not anymore." he said, staring blankly at the wall.

Allie got in his face. _"Don't say that. I'm still here, not to mention that you've got friends in JAMI and RWBY, and we'll have ED-E with us, too, if I can get him fixed. Like you said to me earlier, it's best to move on from the past. We can't do anything to change it."_ she said.

Six sighed. "I know I said that, but that was before I found out my friends all died in a firefight that I should have died with them in."

" _Don't. Say. That. If you think you should have died with them, then what about me? Would you want me to watch you die in a fight you wouldn't have had any chance of winning?"_ she asked, dead serious.

Six shook his head.

" _Then you shouldn't have died with them. You've still got people here who care about you, and saying you should have died in a pointless fight is just… wrong."_

Six felt a familiar presence, and looked behind Allie to see the companions whose weapons he had collected. Vincent and Cass were both drinking together, and they waved to Six, visibly happy. Arcade gave Six a knowing nod. Hope was deep in prayer, and when she came out of it and saw Six, she just smiled. Lily wasn't a Nightkin anymore, but an elderly lady knitting in a chair, with an elderly man behind her, and both of them waved. Rex was at her feet, sleeping, with Raul working on his leg, until he perked up and took notice of Six. Raul looked behind him and waved.

Six just waved back to all of them, oddly at peace. Allie turned around and saw the same thing he was seeing, and she quickly gave Six a hug, despite not having a physical body. _"Besides, I have a feeling they're not really gone."_ she whispered to him, smiling.

Eventually, his friends all faded away, and Allie's hologram disappeared, so Six got up and got on the ladder in the elevator shaft, and headed up to the Penthouse floor.

* * *

Six pulled himself up and out of the elevator shaft onto the Penthouse floor proper, and found himself staring at the same view he was three years ago, when he had just arrived on the Strip. Or, at least, three hundred thousand years ago. Whatever.

Six headed down the steps towards the computer where he had first "met" Mr. House. Curiously enough, the emergency lights were on in the Penthouse, and not anywhere else in the Lucky 38. _"I thought the power was out?"_ Allie asked, curious as to how it was still on.

"I'd have thought so, too." Six said as he walked down the steps and approached the computer. There was flashing text on the screen that said 'Please Insert Backup Device', and some sort of tray popped out of the console. Six examined the tray. The slot where the 'backup device' would go was about an inch and a half in diameter. Six fished around in his duster, and pulled out the Platinum Chip. He put the chip right next to the tray, and it was just the right size, so Six set the chip into the tray, and it was accepted, with the tray folding back into the computer.

The computer lit up with a list of messages.

 _Rebooting Lucky 38 Reactor…complete (680 issues detected)_

 _Rebooting Strip power grid…fail_

 _Rebooting Freeside power grid…fail_

 _Rebooting Westside power grid…fail_

 _Rebooting Nellis AFB power grid…fail_

 _Rebooting Fortification Hill Vault…complete (708 issues detected)_

 _Rebooting teleporter network…fail_

 _Rebooting Securitron network…fail_

 _Contacting Hoover Dam network…fail_

 _Contacting Helios One network…fail_

 _Contacting Big Mountain network…complete (6,933 issues detected)_

 _Rebooting NewVegasRadioHost v3.0…fail_

 _Rebooting YesManOS v2.2…complete (17 issues detected)_

The screen went black for a few seconds after the last message, and then Yes Man's face popped up on the monitor.

His eyes immediately darted to Six, and he blinked a few times. "Hey there! Long time no see!" he said in his usual cheery voice. "My last recorded event was an unexpected shutdown on June 17th, 2284, and I _**swear**_ this place was in better condition before that, 'cause I am getting a **LOT** of error messages on my end! How long was I out, by the way?" he asked, completely unaware of how far into the future he actually was.

"Three hundred thousand years, give or take a few thousand." Six responded.

Yes Man's face changed to a laughing one. "Funny! I thought you said it's been three hundred thousand years!"

"I did."

Yes Man stopped laughing. "If it's been three hundred thousand years, then how are you still alive?"

Six shrugged. "When that wave of fire, or the dust storm, or whatever the hell it was came through, I tried to teleport to Big Mountain to put a stop to the experiment they were running. Somehow, I was launched into the future. I thought I was put on another planet entirely, but that would honestly be a better situation than this."

Yes Man's face didn't change. "Wow! That explains why all of my systems look like they haven't been maintained in… forever! Moving on, how did you find Vegas? By my calculations, we should be really far underground!"

Six pointed up. "One of the surface companies, the Schnee Dust Company, led an expedition to find some more Dust. Instead, they found Vegas. As for me, I've managed to get into one of the academies on the surface, and I'm training to become a Hunter."

Yes Man's expression changed to his regular, happy expression. "Those are definitely words I'm hearing, but I have absolutely no idea what they mean!"

Six sighed. "Dust is apparently some sort of miracle mineral that people have come to rely on. It's like the new uranium, or maybe the new oil. The Schnee Dust Company is a megacorp that mines Dust, and they've got their fingers in basically every market on the surface. Hunters are people trained to fight Grimm, which are… shit, I don't even know how to describe them. They look like animals, but they're all black, have red eyes, and have bones coming out of their bodies. They're apparently hellbent on humanity's destruction, and the only reason they haven't been destroyed yet is because they don't even leave behind corpses."

The eyes on Yes Man's monitor widened. "Wow! The world really has changed, huh? So if you've gotten into an academy to become a Hunter, does that mean you're leaving me here?" Yes Man asked.

Six nodded.

"Great! You turn me back on just so I can sit here and do _**absolutely nothing**_!" the robot said, sarcasm absolutely pouring from his voice.

"I'm not leaving you here forever. I'll be back in a few months."

"That's really vague!"

"No shit it's vague. Are you picking up communications on the surface?"

"I am, actually! How is that relev-"

Six cut him off. "Monitor those and take in as much information about the surface as you possibly can. If at any point those communications start blowing up with stuff about the kingdom of Vale being under attack, take that as a sign that I'll be coming back."

Yes Man rolled his eyes. "Before you go, my few remaining sensors are picking up a lot of people on the Casino floor! If you're gonna leave, take care of them before you do!"

Wait, people?

"How many?" Six asked.

"At LEAST thirty people, there may be more, but my sensors are too damaged to tell!"

"On it." Six said as he moved to the elevator shaft, and quickly worked his way down the ladder to the Casino floor, slowing down when he got close to the Casino floor so as to not alert anyone. _"Think you can take them all on?"_ Allie asked.

"I've had worse odds." Six said confidently. He quietly got off of the ladder and stepped out onto the Casino floor, with the Survivalist's Rifle drawn and half raised. Six could hear what sounded like chanting coming from further back in the gambling hall. He crept down the stairs and carefully maneuvered over fallen slot machines and chairs so as to not make noise. Six moved along where the Lucky 38's cashiers would have been, keeping low in case someone was inside. As he got closer to where the chanting was coming from, some of it became audible.

"…Arbiter, drive the Schnee devils from this holy ground! May your divine winds carry them to their fates!" an elderly male voice said, with a fire in his voice that would have put most preachers to shame.

Six stayed low and got behind a collapsed Securitron, peaking over it to see what he was dealing with. There was a crowd of around thirty five people standing and staring at one man with a long, gray beard., who was surrounded by some sort of light, although it wasn't coming from anywhere specific. Most of the people in the crowd were wearing dusters. Some of them had what looked like plate carriers on, some had hoods on, and others were wearing cowboy hats and ballistic helmets. The man everyone was staring at was wearing a long, brown robe, kind of like a Brotherhood scribe, and he had a hood up, so Six couldn't get a good look at his face. Everyone was also carrying what looked like rifles and shotguns, with none of them looking remotely close to what Six had seen of the armed forces on Remnant. They looked more like 20th century weapons rather than whatever the hell Remnant's militaries used. The old man was flanked on his left and right by four people who were wearing gear that looked more like what Remnant's militaries used, although their weapons were heavily customized.

"Alai, Spirit of Justice, may you guide the Arbiter's righteous hand, for while the Schnee devils know not of the sin they have committed, the Arbiter makes no exception!" the preacher said, holding his arms out towards the crowd. "Yehma, Spirit of Order! May you guide us as we restore this consecrated ground to its former glory!"

Six slowly stood up and aimed the rifle at the preacher, and the preacher slowly pointed to Six. "Step forward." he said. Everyone in the crowd turned around to face Six. He stepped out from behind the Securitron and presented himself, and the light that was previously on the preacher was now shining on Six. The crowd started murmuring.

The elderly man moved towards Six to meet him face to face. "Take off your helmet." he commanded.

"Why should I?"

Six heard several weapons being readied. "Your life depends on it."

"Works for me." Six said as he held the rifle by the carrying handle and reached to release his helmet. He pulled it off, and held it at his side.

The old man felt around his face, trying to make out every single detail. The old man eventually gasped, and stepped back, before bowing. "Arbiter! Please, forgive me! I had no idea that it was you!"

The entire crowd gasped in shock, and one of the armed guards who flanked the man pulled him aside.

"Lorekeeper, are you sure this is the Arbiter?" he said to the man in a hushed tone of voice, although his vocoder prevented Six from being able to discern an accent.

The elderly man nodded. "This is Him. Not only is His Aura the largest among us, His features match the descriptions in our oldest texts."

The guard stared down Six. "If this man is truly the Arbiter, then where is the Spirit of Justice?"

Six raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"The Arbiter's most trusted companion, Alai. She is the Spirit of Justice, and is the one who guides His righteous hand when judging all who come before Him." the guard said, still cautiously eyeing Six.

Allie appeared next to Six. _"I assume that would be me?"_ she asked, leaning on a slot machine.

Some of the women in the crowd gasped, and then bowed. The guard was taken aback. "Alai?! By the Great Hunt, you really are the Arbiter!"

Allie held two fingers up. _"One, my name's not Alai. It's Allie. Two, would you mind explaining why you keep calling my friend here 'Arbiter'?"_

The elderly man spoke up. "I suspected as much. The Arbiter does not know who we are. Perhaps you would be more receptive to us calling you the Man of the West?"

Six finally connected the dots. "Your group wouldn't happen to be the Cult of the One, are you?"

Most people reacted with disgust. "That is the name Outsiders have given us, but yes. We are an advance scouting party sent by the main camp to investigate a leak regarding the location of our holy city of Nevaga." the old man said, stroking his beard.

"It's New Vegas." Six corrected. "And if you're a scouting party, how did you get thirty odd people past the SDC's security?"

The old man laughed. "There's a reason our troops were the most feared during the Great War. Despite our small numbers and relative insignificance, our skill at infiltration hasn't denatured, Arbiter. Neither have the Schnees grown any less incompetent."

"Fair enough." Six said, shrugging.

"Now, as for why we are calling you Arbiter… put simply, you are our patron saint, the Arbiter of Justice."

Six put his hand on his hip. "That's what I've been able to infer so far. I left humanity alone as punishment for their sins or something, and was only supposed to come around when Humanity is on the brink of extinction, right?"

"Correct."

"Did you people have a plan for when I was supposed to come back?" Six asked.

The old man nodded. "Yes, Arbiter. We are to put you in immediate command of our forces so that you may lead us to victory against our enemies."

"Uh-huh. Would you mind introducing me to my troops? I'd like to know who's who."

The old man looked surprised. "Yes, of course, Arbiter." he said, before gesturing towards the armored soldiers. "These four men and women are the Adeptus Custodia. They are elite bodyguards who have sworn to protect our leaders throughout the ages, and have been specifically trained for the task of protecting You for when You return. They will readily lay down their lives to protect You."

The four bodyguards saluted, and the old man moved on to the people wearing plate carriers. "These are the Adeptus Machina. They maintain our equipment, and restore any artifacts we come across to working condition."

Six noticed that some in the Adeptus Machina had animal features. "You recruit Faunus?" Six asked.

"All are welcome within our order so long as they dedicate their lives to You, Arbiter."

"Does the Adeptus Machina have anyone commanding it?"

A wolf Faunus stepped forward and kneeled. "That would be me, Arbiter. The Adeptus Machina is ready to serve." he said, humbled that he was meeting his deity in person.

The old man pointed towards towards the Faunus. "This is Lupus, Order Master of the Adeptus Machina."

"You may rise." Six directed, and Lupus did so. "Lupus, I need to discuss something with you once I'm done here."

Lupus bowed his head. "Yes, Arbiter."

The old man brought Six to the people wearing dusters. "These are the Adeptus Militus. They make up the bulk of our forces. Each of them has been trained to be as effective as two hundred Atlesian infantrymen."

The members of the Adeptus Militus saluted.

"How many of you are there in total?" Six asked.

"There are several other Orders at our camp. In total, we have around two hundred people, the majority of them being part of the Adeptus Militus." the old man said.

Six observed the crowd a bit. All eyes were on Six and Allie, but it wasn't malicious. More like… surprise? Six wasn't really sure what to do. He had never expected to become a religious deity, yet here he stood. Maybe a bunch of tribals revered the legend of the Courier, but that's a fair bit different from outright being a god.

One of the female Custodia soldiers got Six's attention. "Holy Arbiter, what are we to do with the Schnee devils who dare to tread on this holy ground?" she asked.

"Leave them." Six responded.

Everything went dead silent.

"Holy Arbiter, are you sure?"

"Yes. They're not doing anything wrong, and I'd rather not draw unnecessary attention to ourselves."

The Custodia soldier nodded in understanding. Six turned to the old man. "Do you have a name?" he asked.

The old man shook his head. "My Order requires us to shed our names. You may refer to me as Lorekeeper, Holy Arbiter. Do You have any other questions?"

Six paused for a bit. "Do you still perform human sacrifices?"

The Lorekeeper shook his head. "We never have. That is a myth spread by Atlesian propagandists after the Great War to sully and slander our already poor name."

Six breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, I'd be horrified if my followers were just randomly killing people to try and bring me back, but why would Atlas care enough to do that?" Six asked.

The Lorekeeper sighed. "During the Great War, we did a significant amount of damage to Mantle's infrastructure, industry, and their population by using sabotage attacks. This led to Atlas being in a considerable amount of trouble after the war, and they were barely able to rebuild, as Vacuo now controlled most of the Dust production, which rendered Atlas economically poor. This changed when Nicholas Schnee, the founder of the Schnee Dust Company, managed to get enough Lien together to convince the Atlesian government to fund a large number of propaganda campaigns that painted us as monsters, and Atlas as a victim."

"What kind of propaganda campaigns?"

"Pictures of "Vacuoan" soldiers torturing and killing children, doctored images of "our" soldiers posing with dismembered civilians, films of supposed Death Squads roaming the streets and shooting civilians, falsified documents and reports from "our" officials authorizing those attacks, faked correspondences between "officials" where they wrote that they were intentionally destroying Mantle to create an immense debt after the war, and a myriad of others." The Lorekeeper said with a hint of anger in his voice, before he calmed down. "It worked, too. When everything came out, the international community was outraged, and most of Vacuo revolted against us, and we couldn't do anything to stop it because we were still recovering from the loss of most of our political and manpower during the war. Vacuo fell apart, and as a reward for putting Atlas in a position where they can hold a monopoly on Dust production to rebuild, the Atlesian government gave Nicholas Schnee total control over the Kingdom's production and exporting of Dust."

Six didn't react. "How do you know this?"

The Lorekeeper stroked his beard. "I was only sixteen years old at the time. I was the previous Lorekeeper's apprentice, and just before this happened, one of the few remaining saboteurs we had in Atlas warned us about what Nicholas was planning. Of course, by the time his message reached us, it was far, far too late to do anything."

Allie suddenly spoke up. _"Hey, I hate to butt in here, but we're kind of on a time limit. Can we hurry this up?"_

Six snapped to attention. "Shit, I almost forgot. I'd love to stay and chat, but I need to show you something before I'm on my way. Follow me, Lorekeeper. You too, Lupus." Six said, and then he moved for the elevator shaft and started climbing up the ladder again.

* * *

Six and Lupus helped the old Lorekeeper up onto the Penthouse floor, and then the trio walked over to Yes Man's monitor. "Lorekeeper, Lupus, this is Yes Man. You probably know him as Yehma." Six said, introducing the two to Yes Man. Both of them immediately kneeled.

"Hey, Six! Who are these two?" Yes Man said, still as cheery as ever.

"They're cultists. Mine, specifically. They were on the Casino floor. The old guy is their Lorekeeper, and the one in the plate carrier is a head technician, more or less."

"Great! Why are they up here?"

"I want you to help the technician with getting Vegas operational again, and I want you to fill the Lorekeeper in on what happened in the Mojave, start to finish." Six said, looking at the two. "Lorekeeper!" Six shouted, and the Lorekeeper stood at attention. "When you're done up here, I want you to wait for the Schnee employees to leave before you send a group out to bring everyone else down here. They'll probably be gone in a bit, they're worried about being attacked by your people and want to get out fast." Six said, before pulling Lupus up. "Lupus, I want your people to make this city shine again. If you want to know what I want done first, get the farms outside the wall to the east producing food again, and then get the Lucky 38 up and running. After that, see if Hoover Dam and the Securitron Vault can be salvaged. If not, check out HELIOS One and see if the solar panels can be repaired. If they can, figure out a way to get them onto the surface and hooked into Vegas' power grid. Got it?"

Lupus paused for a minute to take what Six said in. "Yes, Arbiter."

Six patted him on the back. "Yes Man can help you out." he said, and his scroll beeped. It was a message from Oobleck; 'We're getting ready to leave. You have ten minutes.'

"It's time for me to leave." Six said, before walking up the stairs.

The old man stood up. "Wait, Arbiter, why are You leaving us?"

Six turned back to the old man. "It's not time for my return yet, but it will be soon. Yes Man will let you know when it's time for me to come back." he said, before moving back up the stairs and into the elevator shaft.

* * *

-  
 **(A/N: You can stop the Psycho Mantis theme now)**

 **3:29 PM**

* * *

Two White Fang scouts were driving a dune buggy over through the wasteland dunes of Vacuo until they heard the sound of an engine overhead. They both looked around, and saw an Airbus passing overhead. They were both going to ignore it, until one of them noticed something. "Check it out. It's a Schnee craft." the first scout said.

"So it is." The second scout said as he stopped the buggy and got out, and he moved to the back to grab something. He quickly pulled out a MANPAD, and took aim at the Airbus, the targeting system beeping all the while. "Clear backblast!" the scout shouted, before letting off the missile. The missile careened and swerved in the air, and then directly impacted the rear blades of the Airbus. The engine immediately started sputtering and smoking, before the Airbus exploded, showering the sands of Vacuo in a small amount of debris.

The second scout set the MANPAD back in the buggy and drove off to see if anything could be salvaged.

* * *

 **OZPIN'S OFFICE**

 **5:15 PM**

* * *

Six stepped out of the elevator, and saw Ozpin sitting at his desk, flanked by Glynda, Oobleck, and Port. Ozpin motioned for him to come and sit down, which Six did. "Do you know why we've called you up here, Nax?" Ozpin asked.

"You want to talk about me being a time traveler." Six responded.

Ozpin nodded. "Would you mind telling us about your time?"

Six shrugged. "Sure, I guess. The cat's out of the bag, anyways. No point in trying to hide it. Where do you want me to start?" Six asked.

Glynda stared at Ozpin. "Ozpin, I don't even know why we're humoring him. Time travel is impossible, he's clearly mad." she said, upset that Ozpin was giving Six the time of day.

Ozpin glared at her. "Glynda, I'm willing to hear him out. While I genuinely doubt he's telling the truth, if he convinced Oobleck that he was, then I'd like to hear it as well. Is that clear?" Ozpin said sternly. Glynda just harrumphed, and Ozpin turned back to Six. "Now, Nax, I'd like you to start with the beginning of what you know about the history of your time."

Six scratched the back of his head. "Well, there's your first problem. I can't."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Most books regarding world history were destroyed. I don't have a complete picture to give you."

Oobleck spat out his coffee. "Destroyed!? By whom?" he said, clearly shocked that something like that would be allowed to happen.

"The old governments." Six responded.

Oobleck was absolutely baffled. "Why would-? What reason could they-? …WHAT?!" Oobleck sputtered.

"It wasn't necessarily a concerted effort, if that makes you feel any better." Six said.

"Then why did it happen?" Oobleck asked, still in shock.

"Total atomic annihilation happened."

Ozpin looked intrigued. "Total atomic annihilation?"

Six nodded. "Every major world power was nuked into an inhospitable, irradiated wasteland in the year 2077, where very little could survive. From what I've gathered, most pre-war animals either mutated into hideous beasts, or simply went extinct. Humanity was effectively sent back to the stone age for around a hundred years, and civilization only became a reality again around 90 or so years before I was born in 2260."

Port stroked his moustache. "Hideous beasts, you say? Such as?" he asked, obviously out of a desire to maybe kill one.

"…The first thing that comes to mind are Deathclaws. They're these big reptiles with huge claws and teeth. They're like ten feet tall and can easily kill any human who isn't properly protected. I've had to exterminate nests of them, and I needed a 20mm anti-materiel rifle to do the job right." Six explained to the best of his ability.

Port pulled out his Scroll and started tapping away, before pulling up a picture and showing it to Six. "Do you mean a Diablo?"

Six's jaw dropped. It was a photo of Port posing next to a dead Deathclaw in the desert. "Yeah, that's a Deathclaw all right. Looks like an Alpha, too. Nice catch." Six said, complimenting the professor.

Port gave Six a jovial smile. "Why, thank you! It was a hard fought battle, and I-"

Ozpin cut him off before he could start a story. "We're getting sidetracked. What about your smart AI, Allie? Can she fill us in?" he asked, and Allie appeared next to Six, hand on his shoulder.

" _I can help to a point. I only really know about the last two years before the nuclear holocaust happened. What do you want to know?"_

Ozpin paused to think. "What was the state of world affairs at the time?"

Allie shook her head. _"Bad. Resources were running out globally, and war was a constant factor in every day life. China, the main enemy of the country that made me, invaded the state of Alaska for oil in the late 2060s or so. I remember being regularly tested to root out Chinese infiltrators a few months before the bombs dropped. Paranoia that everyone was a Chinese spy was… excessive, but not unjustified."_ Allie explained.

"The country that made you?" Oobleck asked.

Allie pulled up three images of flags, one was a red one with a golden hammer and sickle, another red one with five golden stars, and a third, red white and blue flag with thirteen stars. Allie pointed to the American flag. _"This one. The United States of America. We were one of the only democratic nations capable of standing against the tide of Communism."_ she said with a hint of nostalgia and disgust at the end. Allie pointed to the flag with the five stars. _"This was China's flag."_

Glynda pointed at the third flag. "Which country was this?"

" _That country was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They were Communists, but America and the Soviets maintained friendly enough relations over their mutual hate of the Chinese."_

"Hate for the Chinese? Like the racial hatred for the Faunus?" Oobleck asked, taking a sip from his coffee.

Allie shook her head. _"No. It was ideological. The Soviets and the Chinese had a political split around a hundred years before I was created that completely cut any chances of diplomacy in two."_

Port spoke up. "Speaking of the Faunus, where were they during all this?" he asked.

Allie turned her head to face him. _"Nonexistent. They weren't around before our Great War, and they weren't around after. They're completely new to both Six and I."_

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "I assume Six is what Nax usually goes by?"

Allie nodded, and there was relative silence for a bit, with the Professors mulling over the details of what they were being told.

"It's strange that the people of your time would be so divided as to fight over resources. Did you not have the threat of the Grimm, or even Dust?" Port eventually said.

Allie shook her head again. _"No. There's nothing from our time that even remotely matches Dust. The Grimm are also completely new to us."_

Ozpin looked thoughtful. "A world without Dust or Grimm…" he pondered, before looking up. "Do you have any footage of the world before your Great War?" he asked.

Allie pulled up a menu and flipped through a series of what were probably videos, before tapping on one. _"I have some from the facility I was created at before the war. Here you go."_ she said as she enlarged the video.

* * *

 **BIG MOUNTAIN X-13 RESEARCH FACILITY**

 **JULY 4** **TH** **, 2074**

 **2:15 PM**

 **CURRENT OPERATOR: Lieutenant Riley "Snowstorm" Jäger, SOCOM**

 **Clearance level: Black**

 **(A/N: Play Warhead Storage from MGS1)**

* * *

The recording began in the starting room for the X-13 test. The operator, Riley, was apparently checking his gear, and he was wearing an armor similar to the Stealth Suit Mark II, but it was olive drab instead of white. A hologram of a tall woman, around 6'0", with shoulder length, silver colored hair and amber eyes. She was wearing black armor that looked like it was made of rubber, although it was probably some sort of high strength composite material. The actual chest armor also made the wearer look absolutely ripped. _"Ready to get to work?"_ she said, her voice making her sound considerably more reserved and quiet than Allie.

Riley gave her a thumbs up, and he readied his weapon, an N99A2 fitted with a suppressor. "Ready as ever, Vex." he said.

The hologram smiled, and she disappeared.

"Begin the test." a voice belonging to an unseen person said, and then a buzzer sounded.

The doors swung open, and Riley dove forward immediately, taking cover behind the front desk. He poked his head up, and saw a guard, so kept his head down and moved to the door that led to the hallway with the principal's office. Through the door's glass, he saw another guard taking a smoke break, his back turned. Riley pulled out a lockpicking kit, and started working on the door lock. Eventually, he pulled the picks out, and quietly opened the door, before getting up and grabbing the guard and putting him in a tight chokehold, and the guard went limp soon after. Riley poked his head around the corner, and spotted a locker, and then he dragged the guard's body over to it, before opening it and stuffing the body inside, making sure to take one of the rifle magazines the guard had for later. Riley then stuck to the wall, and went to the T section, poking his head around the corner again.

No guards.

Riley quickly went to the door that led to the administration office, and checked the glass. No guard. He jimmied the lock to check if it open, and it was, so he quietly pushed the door open, careful not to step on any trip lasers.

The secretary's room was completely empty, and he made his way to the actual principal's office. Riley pushed the door open, and spotted the "principal" taking a smoke break by the window.

Riley raised his N99A2, and fired a single round into the back of the "principal's" neck, tranquilizing him and putting him to sleep. Riley vaulted over the desk, and moved to the safe on the wall. Vex appeared at the safe. "Do your thing, Vex." Riley said, taking his left hand off the tranq pistol to point at the safe.

Vex shot out some sort of holographic line towards the safe, and a multilayered circle appeared before her. She spun the rings in the circle around, until the whole thing turned green, and the safe swung open, revealing a folder with documents inside, which Riley grabbed, and the buzzer immediately sounded.

Riley returned to the starting room, documents in hand, and saw one of the head scientists standing at the exit door. "How'd I do?" he asked as Vex appeared to the side.

"As impeccable as always, Lieutenant. I unfortunately cannot say the same for your partner." he said, frowning as he looked at Vex.

Vex tilted her head to the side. "Did I do something wrong?"

The scientist cleared his throat as he pulled his clipboard out. "Your safecracking time has been deteriorating. Your previous attempts have generally been completed in three-point-two seconds on average, but the past six attempts have averaged at ten-point-seven seconds for safecracking."

Vex put her hand on her hip. "Then we'll run it again, and I'll fix it." she said confidently.

The scientist shook his head. "I'm afraid that won't be happening."

"Why not?" Riley asked, and the scientist turned his head to him.

"Dr. Urbaniak and Dr. Calis have come to a mutual agreement regarding the Stealth Suit project as it currently stands. That is to say that the project is to be immediately discontinued to focus on the war effort in Alaska, and your partner is to be immediately decommissioned to free up resources for Securitron R&D."

"What?!" Vex shouted, afraid for her life.

"Lieutenant Riley Jäger, please prepare the prototype for decommissioning."

Riley looked over to Vex, and she had tears flowing down her face. "Please, no… I don't want to die… don't let them take me, Riley…"

Riley looked back to the scientist. "Lieutenant Riley, if you do not comply, you will be facing a court martial, and will be executed. Make the right choice." he said, a blank expression on his face.

Riley looked back to Vex. She was on the floor, crying her eyes out.

"Shutting it down now." Riley said. Almost instantly, Vex's head shot to him, her face a mix of shock, disgust, and outright rage. "Sorry, Vex." he said regretfully, and Vex's hologram faded out.

* * *

 **BEACON ACADEMY**

 **PRESENT DAY**

* * *

Allie closed the video.

"…Who was that?" Ozpin asked, eyeing Six's AI partner.

"… _That was a recording of my predecessor, Vex, and my first operator, Riley. Vex was decommissioned shortly after that recording, and Riley was killed three years after our Great War."_

Port raised an eyebrow. "Killed?"

" _A robo-scorpion malfunctioned and shot him in the head."_

The professors remained silent.

"If this 'Vex' AI was your predecessor, and was decommissioned after the recording, how do you have it? Wouldn't the recording have been destroyed along with her?" Glynda asked, keeping an eye on both Six and Allie.

" _I thought that was a recording of one of my earlier exercises with Riley, but I didn't check the date. I have no idea how I have it, though."_

Everyone remained silent, until Ozpin cleared his throat. "Let's change the topic. Nax, can you tell us any more about life after your Great War?"

Six snapped to attention. "Sure. I'll start with the factions I've had to interact with. The first major faction was the New California Republic. They were the dominant power in post-apocalyptic America, had the biggest population and the most guns out of anyone, so they called the shots. They were a republic, styled themselves after Pre-War America, corruption and all. They were the best people to live under if you didn't want to be enslaved, at least until I came around."

Glynda's eyes widened. "Enslaved?"

Six nodded. "If you weren't under the NCR's flag, you were probably under Caesar's Legion, an army of 87 tribes of slaves. They enslaved populations, kept the women as breeding stock," Glynda was horrified "and made it a point to crucify their enemies painfully, and strip away their identities. The Legion and the NCR were fighting in the Mojave over Hoover Dam, a rare source of electricity and clean water at the time, but they had fought a battle over the Dam four years prior to me getting involved. Aside from those two, there was also Mr. House, the overseer of the New Vegas Strip, but I killed him and replaced him."

"Killed him?" Ozpin asked.

"He wanted me to betray a friend of mine by killing her and destroying the only family she had aside from me and my companions. Breaking someone's trust is my personal equivalent to committing random murder." Six said, shaking his head.

"It's good to see that you have some sense of loyalty, Nax." Ozpin remarked.

Six shrugged. "When you're living in a post-apocalyptic hellhole, the only things you can count on are the guns at your side and people's loyalty." he said as he leaned back in the chair. "Anyways, come time for the second battle at Hoover, New Vegas came out on top, with me at the helm. I killed the Legion's Legate, and the NCR's General. Neither faction was in any position to oppose me. Allie?"

" _On it."_ she said as she pulled up another video.

* * *

 **LEGATE'S CAMP, HOOVER DAM**

 **2281**

 **CURRENT OPERATOR: Courier Six**

 **4:43 PM**

* * *

Death was in the air. The smell of burning flesh was stronger in the Legate's Camp than anywhere else on the battlefield, and the screams were louder here. Six could see Fortification Hill going up in flames, laser and rocket fire a near constant coming from the area. Allie appeared in front of him. _"Six, are you sure this is a good idea? I don't want you to die because of something as ridiculous as giving Lanius an honorable death."_ she said, turning to look at what lay ahead of them.

Six pulled out Sweet Revenge and opened the cylinder to check his ammo. Six shots. "I'm positive, Allie." he said as he closed the cylinder.

Six moved through the camp, keeping his guard up. Four Prime Legionaries rushed Six from a pit just ahead, and Six planted a bullet in each of their skulls. When he turned the corner, a Praetorian struck out against him from the right with a ballistic fist, but Six stopped him dead in his tracks, mid punch. The Praetorian was giving him an evil look, and Six literally disarmed him, before ending his brief misery by punching him in the face with his now dismembered arm, eviscerating the man's skull from the force of the 12 gauge chambered in the shotgun, sending bone, blood, and gray matter flying backwards.

Six set Sweet Revenge back inside the duster, and pulled out the Survivalist's Rifle. Four more Prime Legionaries and a Praetorian came from further ahead, from the left, and Six put them down without a second thought.

A spear whizzed over Six's head, and he quickly turned to see a single, lone recruit Legionary charging him with a machete, screaming, and he barely looked older than 13. Six let him get close, disarmed him of his machete in CQC, and then kneed the kid in the face, knocking him out cold. Six nudged the kid's body with his foot.

Still breathing.

Two more Praetorians came running down the steps to the top of the camp, power fists out. They lunged at Six, but he sidestepped, and kicked the one on the right into the one on the left, knocking them both down. Six pulled out his knife, and stabbed them both in the neck, killing them with minimal effort. Six pulled the knife out of the second guy's throat, and threw it directly behind him, impaling itself in the skull of a recruit who was sneaking up behind him. Allie whistled in astonishment.

Six moved up the steps, and spotted Lanius at the top, arms crossed, with two dogs flanking him. Six unsheathed his katana and approached him.

Lanius looked Six over. "An envoy of Vegas, yet you carry yourself for battle. If so, you cannot _truly_ be of that city of cowards." he said with a heavy amount of disdain.

Six smirked behind his helmet. "What, Caesar giving you orders from beyond the grave?" he taunted.

Six couldn't tell, but Lanius was probably furious behind that mask. "Caesar's will is the will of the Legion, and the West... all beneath the flag of the Great Bear exist to test the strength of the Legion. The West shall fall as the East fell, and all the tribes that stretch to the setting sun shall bear the mark of the Legion." Lanius said, pointing towards Vegas and, presumably, California, with his sword.

"Then it's a shame I've made sure the Legion's as ready to fall apart as the NCR is. Your entire command structure, which, keep in mind, relied on Caesar staying _alive_ , is fucked now. Not to mention that I've nuked your supply lines into Vegas. The Legion has no future, it's just a matter of how long it takes to die." Six said, his shit eating grin growing ever wider.

The Legate snarled. "So, it was you who destroyed Dry Wells." he said with disdain.

"Consider it a parting gift from the Twisted Hairs."

Lanius growled, and Six readied his katana. "Nice dogs. If you're such a "Terror of the East," why don't you fight me without them, shit for brains?"

Lanius huffed, readied his sword. "We shall see how brave you are when nailed to the walls of Hoover Dam, your body facing west so you may watch your world die. I shall make a cape of your skin, and your skull, it shall sit by my side, mute, watching as my armies march West. However, I shall honor your last words... and face you alone, as you request. No man will say I refused your challenge, Man of the West." he said with barely contained rage.

The dogs stood down, and Lanius charged Six with speed that seemed impossible for a man of his size and weight. He struck downward, but Six had the reaction time to block it with the katana. Contrary to Six's expectations, Lanius' blade _**wasn't**_ cut in half. Instead, they locked blades, with Six barely holding Lanius at bay, even with his augmentations. "Pathetic. I expected a better fight from one the Frumentarii spoke so highly of." the Legate said, disappointed that Six wasn't much of a fight so far.

"The adrenaline just hasn't kicked in, 's all." Six said through gritted teeth, and he mustered all of his strength to push Lanius back. He succeeded, and then sliced towards Lanius. Much to Six's surprise, however, the Saturnite blade didn't cut through Lanius' armor. Rather, it bounced off.

Six just barely had enough time to react to Lanius swinging his blade to roll out of the way, further down the hill. Lanius kept the assault on, swinging his weapon around like it were made of plastic. It wasn't random, maddened swinging, but rather moves performed by someone who knew what they were actually doing. Six kept blocking until he finally managed to catch Lanius in a blade lock at the bottom of the hill. "Pathetic." was all Lanius said, disappointed that his adversary was such a non-threat.

Six directed the katana upwards with all of his strength, towards the base of Lanius' blade, in an attempt to make him lose his grip and drop the sword so Six could finally get an in on Lanius. This plan, however, failed, as Lanius kept his grip on the sword, and punched Six in the face with such force that he was knocked on his back. Lanius lept forward, blade aimed downward, in an attempt to impale Six while he was down, but Six rolled out of the way just in time. Six managed to get up just in time to see Lanius pull his sword out of the ground, and march towards Six. He looked like he was moving slower now.

"Getting tired already? 'Cause I'm just getting warmed up over here!" Six taunted, katana at the ready.

Lanius said nothing, and swung his sword at Six, like a club, but Six dropped to the ground and it flew over his head, and he quickly got up and abused the gap in Lanius' defenses. Six got a few good strikes in before Lanius could effectively retaliate, and earned an elbow in the gut for his efforts. Six stumbled back, and managed to block another hit, getting Lanius into a blade lock.

Six went for the disarm trick again, but instead of attempting to disarm Lanius, he would create a gap in his defenses. Six drove the blade, and Lanius' arm, upwards, and time slowed down as he pulled back, and rammed the katana through a chink in Lanius' armor. Time quickly sped back up.

Lanius dropped the sword, and looked at the katana driven through his abdomen, clutching at the wound. He looked back up at Six, who then withdrew the katana from his abdomen, and Lanius fell to the ground, paralyzed from the waist down. Six put his boot on Lanius' chest, and Lanius grabbed his foot to try and throw Six off of him. Instead, Six just pulled his foot away, and sliced Lanius' arms off at the elbow. He didn't even scream, and Six put his boot on his chest. "The Legion's fucked, Lanius. If it gives you any peace, the NCR is fucked, too. I'll admit, you put up a good fight, but your armor and weapon made you too slow. You used up too much energy trying to move around in that heavy suit with a big sword that left you vulnerable in an extended fight against someone using lighter weapons." he said as he pushed his boot down on the fallen Legate's chest.

The Legate went limp, and Six took the Legate's helm off, revealing his scarred face. Six walked back towards the Dam, and the gates to the Legate's camp were blown wide open, kicking up a huge dust cloud. Four NCR Veteran Rangers stormed through and took up positions, gawking at Six's armor. Through the smoke cloud walked General Lee Oliver, applauding.

"Caesar on the cross, been a long time since I've seen the kind of work you've laid down today. Damn long time. Not to mention the screams of those Legion bastards when they kicked dirt running east, tail between their ears? Like a choir to my ears." he said, happy with Six's work. His eyes suddenly widened. "Speaking of, what the fuck was that lightshow you pulled off at the Fort? Some kinda hammer of God shit? Amazing, fucking amazing. Could use a hundred of you, spread you over the East, like jacks. Give those skirt wearing fucks the what-for."

Six shook his head. "If you're trying to appeal to my ego, General, It's not working." he said as the smoke cloud cleared, revealing an entire army of Securitron Mark IIs.

Oliver turned around, and then turned back to Six. "I guess it's no secret how you, uh… could you ask them to put their weapons down? I was just reaching into my coat to hand you a cigar." Oliver said, clearly on edge.

"I don't smoke." Six said, before pointing to the four rangers. "You four, unless you want to end up like the Legate, get the fuck out of here. Now." Six commanded with a significant amount of hatred in his voice.

The Rangers looked around, not sure what to do.

"Ten seconds." Six said, and the Securitrons armed their weapons, pointing them at the Rangers, who immediately got the fuck out of there.

Oliver turned to look at the fleeing Rangers, and then looked back at Six. "Just what the fuck do you think you're doing?" Oliver asked, pissed off.

"Taking over, General. I'd let you leave, too, but I want to have some fun with you, first. Lanius died too fast for me, you see." Six subtly threatened, gesturing to the fallen Legate's corpse.

Oliver's face scrunched up. "What sorta sick 'fun' are you talking about, you walk-the-wasteland fuck?"

Six smirked behind his helmet. "The kinda fun where I make a mockery of you and your nation, before I break you, and your faith in the NCR. Let's start with the mockery part, shall we?" he said as he pulled out a small piece of paper and unfolded it, before clearing his throat.

"To General Lee Oliver, or the highest ranking survivor, to the NCR's president or vice president, and to the NCR council, from Nax Strag; As Chief Executive of the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas, I hereby demand the IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL of all NCR military personnel from the Mojave desert. Yes, "all military personnel" includes NCR Rangers. "The Mojave Desert" includes the entire state of what was formerly known as Nevada, including a buffer zone of 40 square miles around the former state lines. It is IMPERATIVE to remember that my vast army of heavily-armed Securitrons has been rather inflexibly programmed to respond to acts of aggression with overwhelming force, courtesy of the late Robert House. For examples of "heavily-armed" and "overwhelming force," I will refer you to the merciless campaign of extermination my Securitrons will have visited upon Caesar's Legion by the time you are reading this document. Any NCR military personnel who do not withdraw from New Vegas and its territories will be seen as committing an "act of aggression." Do not attempt to invade New Vegas in retaliation for the loss at Hoover Dam, as my recent work on the Long 15, and the recent destruction of New Canaan, will prove fatal for your nation. Do not make the same mistake Kimball did with the Mojave campaign. In addition, all military equipment consisting of armed or otherwise armored vehicles, ammunition under ownership of any quartermasters or requisitions officers, and 2/3rds of all MRE is now to be considered property of the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas, and is to be handed over immediately. NCR Citizens are NOT required to follow this order of withdrawal, and are encouraged to stay in New Vegas. Cordially, Nax Strag, Chief Executive, Free Economic Zone of New Vegas." Six finally finished, setting the paper back into his duster, and _holy shit_ , the look on Oliver's face couldn't be bought with ten year's worth of income from the Strip. Six had to restrain himself from laughing his ass off.

"What the fuck is this Brahmin shit? This paper, it's not fit to wipe my own goddamn ass." the General said, visibly pissed and insulted. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

Six pointed to himself. "Me? I'm the winner here. NCR and Legion are both fucked. Me, a literal, honest to fucking God mailman, just kicked the shit out of the two biggest powers in the wasteland." he said, his grin getting bigger by the second.

Oliver shook his head in disgust. "Look, I know you're riding high right now, but you're not pissing on me right now, you're pissing on the Bear."

Six laughed. "Yeah, I'm pissing on the Bear. What the fuck is it going to do about it? Try and paw at me before half of the body breaks off and fights the other half to avoid fucking with me? _Please_ , the NCR wouldn't even be able to lay a finger on us." Six mocked.

Oliver was getting even more angry. "Do you even know what you're doing? Making a nation ain't like chowing down on a pile of Fancy Lads Snake Cakes! Think you got the guts to carve out a frontier? Build towns, protect the roads, run supplies, train troops?" he shouted.

Six rolled his eyes. "I can guarantee I've put more thought into the Mojave than you, Kimball, or anyone in the senate ever has. Now, you're probably asking yourself why I went to such lengths to shit on the NCR…"

Oliver squinted. "That was one of my questions, yeah."

"Tell me, General, have you ever heard of a town called Frosthill?"

Oliver blinked a few times. "Frosthill? You mean that town up in Utah? What the fuck does it have to do with this?"

Six silenced him. "I'm getting there, General. I was part of a group of bounty hunters in the area who were contracted by the NCR to bring down Marko Booth so that they could annex the town. Long story short, Brookshire, the NCR diplomat who was contracting us, betrayed us. He sold out to Marko and his gang, put Marko in control of the town, and he summarily executed every last bounty hunter and person in the town. I was then mutilated, buried alive, and left for dead, although the only other survivor dug me up and nursed me back to relative health. I then killed Marko, marched my ass back to Vegas, and killed Brookshire in full view of everyone at the embassy." Six said, getting madder as he went on.

Oliver shook his head. "I'm failing to see your point here."

Six continued. "Before Frosthill, I was ambivalent about the NCR. I didn't see your country as terrible, just not ideal. After Frosthill, I've grown to realize that they're nothing more than a bunch of petty bureaucrats and politicians, willing to shit on anyone who helps them if it gets them what they want faster. The NCR shat on me, and I shat right back on them. They'd be lucky if the thorough fucking I've given them doesn't result in them collapsing."

Oliver looked shocked, and then reached for his revolver, but he didn't draw. "Enough talk. I came here for a fight." he sneered.

Six rolled his eyes. "If it's a duel you want, it's a duel you'll get. I'll make you an offer, though. I'm sure you've heard that I've acquired an AI partner that would be of some interest to the scientists back in the NCR."

Oliver slowly nodded.

"Beat me, and you can have her."

"Deal." Oliver said in a heartbeat.

Allie appeared next to Six. _"What the hell are you doing?!"_ she shouted, although both of them ignored her.

Six reached for Sweet Revenge, and he and Oliver stared each other down, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Oliver drew and shot first, managing to land a single .44 round dead center on Six, knocking him to the floor and onto his side. Six didn't get up. _"No!"_ Allie yelled, sure she would be killed by the NCR when Oliver took her.

Oliver walked up to her. "You're mine now." he taunted, before turning back to the presumed dead Six. Instead of Six being in the position he was five seconds ago, he was now pointing Sweet Revenge at the General. Six shot once, and the General was hit in the stomach. He stumbled back and raised his revolver to shoot Six again, but Six ran up and disarmed him, before kicking him against the wall.

Six picked up the General's revolver, and then pulled out a single crushed .44 magnum round from his armor. "Bet you didn't expect Saturnite plating." he taunted as he started to juggle both the General's revolver and Sweet Revenge in the air.

Oliver looked at him with disgust. "Cheating bastard…" he said, blood oozing from his wound.

Six kept juggling the revolvers, before taking the General's revolver and shooting him in the left leg once, and Oliver screamed in pain. "I don't think of it as cheating. You got overconfident, thought you could beat someone with as many lives as me."

Six holstered Sweet Revenge, and twirled Oliver's gun around more, before putting it behind his back and throwing it in the air, catching it with his other hand. Six shot Oliver in the right leg, and he screamed again. Six pulled Sweet Revenge out, and kept twirling the revolvers around, before shooting Oliver in the arms with his own revolver, which he then discarded. Six levelled Sweet Revenge at Oliver's face. "The NCR's fucked. Make peace with that."

Six pulled the trigger.

* * *

Everyone was silent.

" _I'm still mad that you offered me up to him, Six."_ Allie eventually said.

Six shrugged. "You and I both know he wouldn't have won."

Glynda coughed. "The amount I've brutality I've just witnessed is… disturbing, to say the least."

Port, Oobleck, and Ozpin nodded in agreement.

"I'm not defending what I did, but this happened not too long after I came out of the lowest point in my life. I don't torture people to death, not anymore. I'll taunt them, but I kill quick."

Nobody was talking. Port and Glynda were both looking at Ozpin, and Oobleck was deep in thought. Eventually, Oobleck looked at Six. "Hold on, you called the Legate the Terror of the East?"

Six nodded.

"And he called you the Man of the West?"

Six nodded again, and Oobleck turned to everyone. "…I believe we are in the presence of the One Eyed Vigilante." he said before taking a sip of coffee.

All eyes were on him. Glynda was skeptical. "What makes you think that?"

Oobleck looked at her. "Very few people actually know of this, but the Cult of the One in Vacuo has an ancient tale, depicting someone known only as the Terror of the East, going up against the Vigilante, who he referred to as the Man of the West, before they engaged in a duel that decided the fate of ancient Vacuo. I believe we've just witnessed that exact duel." Oobleck said, before taking another sip of coffee.

Ozpin looked up from his desk at Six. "I believe we've taken up enough of your time already, Nax. I'd like to discuss this matter further privately with my colleagues. Before I let you go, however, I just have one question."

Six raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"How many people know about this?"

Six paused. "…Just Aqui, from JAMI."

"…I see. That will be all."

* * *

 **JAMI'S DORM**

 **8:23 PM**

* * *

Aqui poked her head through the door. "Jules, you in here?" she said quietly. She saw her partner's hand raise from behind the wall, and she approached him. "Julius, I want to talk to you about something."

Julius focused on her. "Something on your mind?

Aqui nodded. "It's about Roman."

Julius' face went blank. "…What about that rat fuck?"

Aqui winced. She and Julius were best friends, yes, but she hated this side of him. "…I know you're mad that he's still alive. Really, I understand how you feel, but you need to take him off your mind." she said, realizing that what she was saying was falling apart. She had mentally practiced this conversation a thousand times, but she realized it was falling apart the second she actually started speaking to Julius.

"Why?"

"This need you feel, to end him? It's not healthy. I don't mean to say I don't want him dead, because I absolutely want him dead, too, but you need to take him off your mind and focus on the now." she said, barely maintaining eye contact. She set her hand on top of his. "We've lost everything. I don't want to lose you, too, Julius." she said sadly.

Julius stared through Aqui. "…I'll make an attempt." he said, not exactly detached, but he had a certain amount of apathy in his voice.

That answer didn't fill her with confidence.

* * *

 **HOLY FUCKING DOGSHIT THAT'S THE END OF THIS CHAPTER**

 **THIS TOOK SO FUCKING LONG TO WRITE YOU HAVE NO IDEA**

 **I'm gonna take a break from writing for a while, I feel like I'm overworked as fuck these last few weeks.**

 **CLARIFICATION TIME AND SHIT**

 **Remnant being a future Earth was planned pretty close to the beginning, as far back as Chapter 4.**

 **Everyone having effectively uncontrollable semblances immediately after the blowout was something that popped into my head during chapter 10. Basically, people evolved to not have disastrously uncontrollable semblances. Think of them as more like a proto-semblance before evolution kicked in, where they're unstable as shit and have some pretty fucking whacky effects.**

 **Raul's proto-semblance was mostly inspired by The Thing, but then I realized his flesh pile form looked like The Master from FO1 and then rolled with it. His fight was also supposed to end much quicker, with Six hopping on a Technical's .50 and shredding Raul.**

 **Take a fucking guess who the guy in the riot armor was.**

 **The MRAPs look like Insurgents from GTA 5 with longer backs.**

 **Six telling Yes Man to monitor the communications on the surface wasn't Six knowing about the Beacon CCT getting fucked up, Six is assuming the CCT will explode with information when Vale comes under attack.**

 **I'm fairly sure this chapter went through the most rewrites of any other chapter.**

 **If the timing feels wrong to you guys, put the blame on me forgetting that the Jaune-Cardin episodes take place immediately after the Emerald Forest. I'll take the heat on that one.**

 **The Order names for the cult were originally gonna be something else entirely, but then I settled on 40k styled names. Sue me.**

 **The Kanji on the katana is almost certainly fucking wrong. I know jack shit about Japanese but I still wanted to name it something that wasn't stereotypical of named swords in fantasy settings like Hope or some gay shit like that. Allie's limited knowledge of Japanese is intentional to excuse any fucked up translations.**

 **Zach, RWBY, and JNPR being there was just me throwing them in there for the intent of giving them shit to do and have potential story bits but I scrapped that, and I don't really care enough to remove them.**

 **The Airbus getting blown up wasn't the Beacon Airbus, it was the SDC expedition Airbus, so that Vegas' location isn't brought to the attention of the SDC.**

 **The name of Riley was a reused name from Girls and Guns, my shitcanned Girls Frontline fic. That was the full name of the Commander before I inevitably scrapped that one to focus on this story. The N99A2 is what I'm referring to the Fallout 4 10mm pistol without the big chunky compensator on the front. The N99A1 would be the New Vegas/Fallout 3 10mm. Also, that entire bit was inspired by Metal Gear.**

 **Vex/The Stealth Suit Mark 1's armor was based on the sneaking suit from MGSV, and Vex herself was based on Vector from Girls' Frontline. I'm a lazy bastard, I know.**

 **Urbaniak is the last name of Dr. 0's voice actor. Stole another idea from New World Blues where you name a character after their voice actor, fuck yeah dude lmao**

 **Six juggling the revolvers is a reference to the scene from MGS3 where Revolver Ocelot twirls, spins, and juggles his revolvers around. Just google revolver ocelot mocap and you'll see what I mean.**

 **As always, review this shit and leave criticism.**

 **-Tweak**


	12. Chapter 12

**New day, new chapter. We're moving back to the grind with RWBY for now.**

 **Before I go onto the reviews, I'm considering bumping this up to an M for violence reasons, thoughts? I really want to do some dark and edgy shit later that will probably get staff on my ass because this is currently T rated. Not like turning the story into a big fuck off gorefest, but rather torture, completely breaking someone mentally, shit like that.**

 **REVIEWS**

 **To spartan-140: Dude, go play NV again. I'm playing it in preparation for both the supercut and the prequel story. Also, I chose Vector because I like her aesthetics. Since she was Allie's predecessor, I had to pick a girl who looked close to her. It was a tossup between her and OTs-12, and Vector won because Oats looks a tad overdesigned for my tastes.**

 **To : Holy fuck you're right. You know what's funny, too? In the original story I actually made reference to Metro 2033 by making it so that Six had heard rumors from Russia about shit like the gargoyles and Nosalises and people surviving in the metro tunnels. As for the guy in Riot Armor, Six's semblance allows him to see people's imprints on weapons and involuntarily summon them as allies, and he was using the Survivalist's Rifle, so put two and two together.**

 **To Rio Skyron: Companion mods currently being applied are Russell, Vincent Vincent, and Hope Lies. I've toyed with the idea of throwing Willow and Niner in, but Willow is waifubait and Niner is annoying as fuck. The other New Vegas Bounties companions that aren't temporary and also are not Russell (like the ghoul orthodontist, his name escapes me atm) are not with Six. I actually may have to write Vincent out, because on the save I'm working with Six from, Vincent fucking died somewhere. He's totally gone and I have no fucking idea where he died at. He already died once and I reloaded when I saw him die, but I have no clue how far back the save is from when he died.**

 **To Akashic Records: Probably because it's the most convenient way of doing a crossover. I'd pin most of the blame on fighting games or some shit for propagating that kind of thing. Of course, sometimes you'll get something unique like having it be characters from one setting but the world has been revamped to fit with the other setting, where the characters aren't "fish out of water" types who are way out of their element. JAMI, admittedly, were kind of a mistake to put in. I don't do well with a shitton of characters (partially one of the reasons I scrapped Girls and Guns so early, there would have been too many characters for me to keep track of, because I planned on adding vehicle T-Dolls in addition to the regulars), and they're a really old holdover from the original form of Grimm Retreat back in 2013, but I've got a plan to make them not shit. Whether it works or not is entirely up to my writing ability. As for handling Julius, she just wanted Six's perspective on it since his life was so much more affected by constantly chasing people for revenge than either hers or Julius. Six isn't going to be in direct control of the cult until much later. I'd fucking blow my own brains out if I just immediately handed him control of an entire goddamn army of what basically amounts to a hundred or so Solid Snakes 11 chapters in, because that is the exact kind of Mary Sue bullshit I want to avoid. Fuck. That.**

 **To the first Guest who didn't put a name: No. I disagree with you creatively. What's the point of writing fanfiction if you're going to bend over to official canon every time there's a contradiction? I bent the knee on the Jesus/God thing and changed them to the brothers, but I'm not budging on this. I have added an AU warning to the description, though.**

* * *

Six was drifting in and out of sleep, in a sort of state of limbo. This wasn't anything new to him, it always happened after something important happened to him personally. Not immediately, but within a week of something important happening, he had one. The first time he could remember it happening was when he left his father's ranch, north of Arroyo, after their final argument. The second was the night after he had finally woken up a week after being shot by Benny. The third happened two days after he killed Benny. The last time this happened was after he had finally killed Marko.

Sometimes, this limbo state where Six would drift in and out of consciousness would be accompanied by nightmares. Typically, they were little more than brief flashes of terror, sometimes with a quick burst of images. Images were flashing before his eyes. Scenes of…something in flames. Phantom pains in his right arm. An even larger phantom pain quickly washed across his entire body, starting from the base of his skull. Before Six managed to stay conscious long enough to actually sit up in the bed, there was one last image. An image of a man in a white mask looking down at him with disdain.

When Six did manage to finally get up, he rubbed his eye, and yawned. Couldn't have been later than four in the morning, although Six didn't care enough to check the clock.

" _Can't sleep?"_ Six heard Allie say to his left. He looked over to her, albeit slowly due to still being tired. Allie was sitting on the desk, surrounded by a ton of holographic displays that Six was too tired to bother understanding if Allie wasn't going to explain. The moonlight was shining through her holographic body, and Six could sort of make out her smiling at him.

"Nope. You?"

Allie giggled. _"AIs don't need to sleep, silly."_

"Then what do I see you doing next to me when I wake up in the morning?"

Allie's face reddened. "I-It's an emulation of sleeping!" she stuttered in embarrassment.

Six rolled his eyes. "Is you hugging my arm when I'm asleep an emulation of affection?" he teased. Allie's face grew even more red. She couldn't even think of something to respond to that with. "Relax, I'm screwing with you."

Allie quickly returned to normal.

"For real, though, what are you doing?" Six asked, curious.

Allie appeared next to him on the bed. _"…Well, when we discovered we were time travelers, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. None of it made any sort of logical sense. Remnant looks nothing like Earth, yet they're the same planet. Three hundred thousand years shouldn't completely terraform a planet like it has Remnant… Earth, whatever."_ she said, shaking her head at the end. _"I've been running analytical models the past few days trying to figure out how the Brains managed to effectively destroy our old understanding of physics, biology, and the natural world."_

Six raised his hand and pointed up with his index finger. "I wouldn't exactly call what we had in the Mojave "natural," Allie."

Allie raised her finger, as if to quip back, but then retracted it. _"Fair point, actually."_ she said, before pulling up a couple more holographic displays. " _The time travel thing makes sense to me, as it's basically just working in reverse from what the scientists did to prevent the Great War so that it sends you forwards, instead of backwards, and, you know, avoids having the universe kill you to prevent a time paradox,"_ she said as she pulled up some more displays, with plenty of things crossed out in red or circled in yellow. _"but making so much of a mess that not only do you somehow completely change the face of the planet over a period of three hundred millennia, you create a miracle material that defies everything we know about the mineral world, manage to give humanity superpowers, AND create an entirely new type of creature that actively wants to destroy humanity, and feeds off of negative emotions? That's an entirely different subject, honestly, and I don't buy natural evolution as an answer."_ she shrugged.

Six leaned back. "Don't forget blowing up the goddamn moon. That aside, do you have any possible leads on what the Brains did to cause this?"

Allie shook her head. _"If I did, I'd probably be the most powerful AI ever. This is some Roadside Picnic tier insanity we're dealing with. Maybe not as extreme, but pretty close. I'm completely lost right now."_

Six paused for a bit. "How's ED-E coming along?" he asked, scratching his stubble.

Allie frowned, and pulled up even more displays, throwing the others to the side. _"Not good. Most of his data is corrupt."_ she said, pointing at what looked like bar graphs with huge chunks of the bars in red. _"These red bars you see here, that's the corrupted data visualized in a way you can understand. The red bars, I can repair."_

Six pointed to the considerably smaller black bars. "What's this?"

" _Unrepairable data. Thankfully, there's so little of it that I should be able to replace it entirely, using the rest of his code as a framework. None of it's his personality data or memories, just some general functionality."_

Six looked at the bars, then back at her. "Do you have an estimate of when it'll be done?"

Allie looked thoughtful. _"Best guess? The day before the Vytal Festival."_

Six frowned. "That late, huh?"

Allie nodded.

"Then in that case, I'll leave you to it. I'm going back to bed."

Six laid back down, and as he closed his eye, he saw Allie close her displays, and she laid down next to him. She summoned her hologram "plush" of a miniature Six in his armor, and held it to her body with her right arm, while she was holding on to Six with her left arm.

* * *

 **3:43 PM**

 **VALE**

* * *

Six blended in among the people of Vale like a Deathclaw in the middle of the Strip, which is to say, not at all. He was on the prowl for something he practically viewed as necessary for survival. It was an unusually hot day in Vale, even by Six's standards, which had admittedly gotten lower after spending but a few short weeks in Vale's temperate climate.

As he walked, some of the people in the crowd were giving him looks of disdain or even disgust, but he cast their thoughts to the wayside. Maybe they'd held some sort of grudge against bounty hunters, but Six had stopped caring what random people thought of him long ago. Allie was totally silent, probably repairing ED-E.

Eventually, Six ducked into a dark, dingy alley, like the kind you'd see in some pre-war school anti-chem video. As if to make the scene any more stereotypical, some rats scurried out from behind some exposed wiring and hid under a dumpster and pile of trash, and a hobo threw up right in front of Six's feet. Six cautiously stepped over the pile of bile, and moved further back into the alley.

The further back he went, the shittier the alley looked. Urban decay had clearly set in back here, and it barely looked maintained. Some vines had taken root in the buildings, and moss was creeping up the walls. There were also more… unsavory types in the alley. Mostly teenage Faunus, maybe White Fang, maybe just gangsters. Whoever they are, they didn't like Six, but hadn't made a move on him yet.

Six ignored them, and came out into a sort of back lot where three alleyways, including the one he had just come from, all met. Six could hear to his right something rummaging through a rather large pile of oversized coin bags. From that same direction, he heard a voice. "'Ello, I'll be roit wit'chu's!" the muffled voice said. Six could sort of make out some sort of British accent, but whoever the voice belonged to was buried under the bags.

Eventually, the owner came out, and Six had to blink twice to make sure what he was seeing was real. Before him stood a "man," about 3'9". He was barely taller than the average kid. Hell, kids looked completely built when compared to this guy. He was wearing some armor and a helmet, colored in olive drab, although it was incredibly dirty. The armor itself looked like a smaller version of reinforced combat armor, although it was more angular, and the helmet had the visor totally missing, and there was some sort of golden aquila, likely an insignia. In one hand, he had a dripping bag at least twice his size, full of… something, but Six wasn't exactly keen on finding out _**what**_ it was. That's not even to mention the little goblin's repulsive stench, it even overpowered Six's filtration, and he started coughing violently.

The goblin gave Six a cheeky smile and pulled out a toothpick, before playing with it in his free hand. "Sorry 'bout that, me smell's a bit… strong." he said, clearly not caring for his lack of hygiene. Eventually, Six managed to regain his composure, and the gremlin of a man started talking again. "So's, wot brings you ta me part'sa town?" he said greedily, rubbing his hands together.

Six put his hands in his pockets. "Whiskey." The little man's eyes lit up. Clearly, he thought he stood to make a profit from this little venture. The gremlin jumped back into the pile, and rummaged around for a few seconds, and he quickly came back out with a small wooden case. He set it on the ground, opened it, and kicked the case over to Six. Inside the case were about eight whiskey bottles, although Six doubted the contents were actually whiskey. He kneeled down and pulled out one of the bottles, and looked up to the gremlin, who was giving the worst fake smile ever. "Do you mind if I check the product? Can't be too sure about what you're paying for these days." Six asked sincerely.

The gremlin of a man immediately started looking nervous. "S-sure's, me whiskey's the best around! Roight, guys?" he stuttered. Some of the shady types nearby backed him up. Immediately, he regained his confidence. "But if you's feel that you's needs to check me whiskey, go's ahead."

Six didn't need any further permission, and he picked one of the bottles out. Six slowly examined it. It clearly wasn't whiskey, as the liquid was completely clear. There even seemed to be some small, dark particles floating around inside the bottle. Six tilted the bottle to one side a few times, and ran his fingers along the edge of the bottle a few times. Eventually, he held it in front of his face by the neck, and turned on his AR scanner implant to see what was actually inside the bottle.

… _Scanning…_

…

…

 _Contents: 23% water, 22% ethanol, 14% lead particulate, 30% ricin, 11% cyanide._

Six looked at the gremlin. "Oi'm sure's thats me whiskey's-"

"It's not whiskey." Six said simply, and the man looked offended.

"Wot the 'ell do you mean, 'it's not's whiskey?!' Oi brewed it meself!" he shouted.

Six stood up and stared down at the little man. "Whiskey's not clear like this is," he said as he pointed to the bottle. "…and the fact that there's ethanol in the bottle rules out it being moonshine. It's vodka, but over half of the stuff in this bottle is poisonous. It'd probably kill any regular person on the spot." Six finished, before setting the bottle back inside the case. The man was confounded, either because his plan to kill and loot Six of his gear blew up in his face, or because he genuinely screwed up brewing. "If you don't have any actual whiskey, I'll be taking my Lien elsewhere." Six stated, crossing his arms.

The gremlin of a man raised a hand to stop Six from leaving. "'Old up, no need ta be's so's rash!" he said, panicked that a source of profit was about to walk out on him. "Oi've got's a case of whiskey oi've… 'acquired' frum one of them's high class bars. Just, give's me a minute or two's, awroight?"

Six shrugged, and the man took that as a yes, so he grabbed the case and went back into the pile of bags. He kept rummaging around for around a minute, and came back out with a different, smaller, and more ornate case made with a richer, darker wood than the other one. He set that one on the floor, opened it, and turned it to Six. Inside, there were 6 whiskey bottles, and Six instinctively took one out to check it with the AR scanner. Thankfully, this one was _actual_ whiskey. He checked the other bottles, and none of them showed up with any poisonous chemicals. Six took the bottles and set them inside his duster, and then pulled out his wallet, before handing the gremlin around a hundred Lien, and walking off, leaving the case behind.

Six walked through the alley directly across from where he came in, and it was just more of the same urban decay as before, although with a distinct lack of homeless people.

As he came back out onto the pristine Vale streets, near the waterfront, he heard some familiar voices further down the street.

"…How could you _not_ smile? It's a festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There'll be dances! Parades! Even a tournament! The amount of planning that goes into it is just phenomenal!"

"You sound like such a friggin nerd, Weiss. Seriously."

"You shut up, Julius!" Weiss responded.

"You reaaally know how to make something awesome like the Vytal Festival sound really boring, Weiss."

"That means you too, Yang!"

Six couldn't see what exactly was going on. He turned the corner, and saw RWBY and JAMI walking down towards the docks, where a boat was waiting, probably to let its passengers disembark.

"Remind me why we're spending our Friday afternoon at the docks?" Yang said, bored to tears.

Weiss turned around to face everyone else. "Well, I've heard that students from Shade are arriving today. As a representative of Beacon, I feel that it's my duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom." she said, before noticing Six was practically right behind them.

"A giant, gold plated hand with penises for fingers giving them the middle finger as they got off the boat would be less offensive than having you greet them, Weiss." Six said, totally deadpan.

Everyone slowly turned around to face Six, before they all started to take in what he just said. Their faces all turned red from trying to hold in laughter, even the normally stoic Blake and Marshall found it funny. It actually sounded more like several tires deflating than people trying to hold in laughter.

Well, everyone except for Weiss, who was absolutely fuming, and Ruby, who didn't understand what Six said. Weiss smacked Six upside the head in retaliation, only to realize too late that she had just hit steel. "Ow, ow, ow! I think I just broke a nail, oh, god!" she yelled in distress as she shook her hand from the pain.

Nobody could hold in their laughter anymore.

"Smooth one, Weiss. Real smooth." Izzy commented, clearly enjoying the heiress' suffering.

Ruby was obviously distracted by something, and Six turned to see what she was looking at. Turns out, she was looking at an active crime scene in front of a store. "Woah." Ruby remarked, and everyone's attention was directed towards the store, the laughter dying down as they did so.

Everyone quickly moved up to the scene. Cops were milling around, and there were a few chalk outlines and spent casings. The interior of the store was totally wrecked. All the glass was smashed, most of the interior décor was broken and piled up, and it even looked like there had been some explosives damage inside. "What happened here?" Ruby asked one of the aviator wearing cops writing something down.

"Rahbbery." he replied. "Second Dust shop tah be hit this week." he said as he turned around to face the store.

"Looks like more than just a robbery to me." Julius commented.

The cop turned right back around with such speed that he may have just given himself whiplash. "Place had armed guards. Firefaht broke out, killed four guys, a perp and the three guards. This whole damn city's turning into a jungle." he said as he turned around and went to speak with one of his fellow officers.

"That's terrible." Yang said as she shook her head in disgust.

"Lookathat, they leftallthamoney again." an Italian sounding cop said, not caring whether his speech sounded slurred or not.

That got both Six's and Ruby's attention. The two cops started chatting back and forth, like it was some sort of buddy-cop movie.

"Nyeah, doesn't make any sense. Who need that much Dust?"

"Iunno, an ahmee?"

"You thinkin' the uh, Huwite Fang?"

"Nah, I'm thinkin we don't get paid enough."

Weiss sneered. "The White Fang. What an awful bunch of degenerates!"

Izzy nodded. "For once, I agree with you, Weiss."

Blake turned to stare at both of them. "What's your problem?" she asked with a hint of offense in her voice.

Weiss turned her nose up. "I simply don't care for the criminally insane." she said with smug superiority.

"The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths! They're a collection of misguided Faunus!" Blake retorted.

"No 'misguided' group goes to a civil rights protest with signs that say things along the lines of "Kill the furless" and then beats random people within inches of their lives for no reason other than being born wrong!" Izzy replied, clearly angry.

"That, and they want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!" Weiss added on.

"So then they're **very** misguided!" Blake responded, vainly trying to defend the Fang.

Izzy rubbed her temples in frustration. "Of all the people you could defend, Blake, you choose to defend a group of militarized, genocidal terrorists. Seriously?"

"They're not terrorists, but even still, that doesn't explain why they'd need this much Dust, let alone why they'd rob a place in the middle of downtown Vale!"

Marshall finally spoke up. "Maybe they're planning something big?"

Ruby also spoke up. "Blake has a point. They never caught that Torchwick guy Nax and I ran into last month."

"And they never will." Julius interrupted, absolutely certain that he was right.

Ruby ignored him and continued. "Maybe it was him?"

Weiss continued the earlier conversation. "Even still, that doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum!"

"We already established that, yeah." Izzy said.

"Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal!" Weiss continued.

"…That's not necessarily true, Weiss." Yang said, but before the conversation could go any further, they were interrupted by someone shouting closer to the waterfront.

"HEY! STOP THAT FAUNUS!"

Everyone immediately went over to the railing to see the commotion, and they were all treated to the sight of a blonde, nearly shirtless monkey Faunus hanging from an arch.

The two cops from before hopped over the railing, and marched up to where the Faunus was hanging. "'Ay! Get down from there this instant." the one in aviators commanded.

The Faunus replied by throwing his banana at the cop's face, and jumping down and running away, giggling like a child. He ran up the stairs and passed by RWBY, JAMI, and Six, cops in tow. As he passed by the group, Six _swore_ that he saw the Faunus wink at Blake, before fleeing into the streets.

Weiss stuttered. "Er, quick! We have to observe him!" she shouted, before running off. Julius was way ahead of her, as evident by the blurry red and black trail that had almost instantaneously formed.

* * *

Julius had little trouble keeping up with the monkey Faunus, and pulled up next to him. "Heya. First time in town?" he asked, as if he wasn't chatting with a wanted stowaway.

The Faunus looked over to him. "Something like that, yeah!"

"There's an alley with a fire escape up on the left, just before the next intersection. The cops in this part of town aren't too bright, so you can use it and get into the suburbs." Julius said as they passed by an orange haired girl.

"Thanks, uh…?"

"Julius."

"Right, thanks!" the monkey Faunus said as he sped off into the alleyway Julius was talking about. Just after he went inside, the cops turned the corner, and Julius acted like he had lost him, giving them a shrug.

Both of the cops got frustrated, and walked away, muttering something about not getting paid enough to chase stowaways. The orange haired girl was just looking back, confused, before she continued on her path.

…only to have Weiss run right into her.

They both fell to the ground, and Weiss looked up, only to see the Faunus was gone. She slammed her fist against the concrete. "No! He got away!"

The rest of RWBY and JAMI rounded the corner. Yang pointed to the orange haired girl. "Uh, Weiss?"

Weiss looked down at the girl, and then jumped back, panicked.

"Sal-u-tations!" she greeted, totally unfazed by being body slammed.

"That wouldn't be my first response." Six commented. "You alright?"

"I'm wonderful! Thank you for asking!"

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. "Are you… going to get up…?" Weiss asked, not sure what else to say.

"….Yes!" the orange haired girl said, before pulling her legs back and launching herself to her feet. Everyone took one step back, probably out of fear.

"My name is Penny! It's a pleasure to meet you all!"

"Hi, Penny. I'm Ruby."

"Nax."

"I'm Weiss."

"Julius."

"I'm Aqui, nice to meet you, Penny."

"I'm Marshall, that's Izzy."

"Blake."

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Yang asked, before Blake punched her in the gut. "Oh, I'm Yang."

"It's a pleasure to meet you all!" Penny repeated. She seemed incredibly hyperactive, uncomfortably so.

"You already said that." Weiss pointed out.

Penny spaced out for a second. "...So I did!"

"I… sorry for bumping into you!" Weiss apologized, before going back down the street they came from.

"Take care, friend!" Ruby shouted back.

When they were sure they were out of earshot, Yang spoke up. "She was… weird."

"I'm inclined to agree. Her Aura felt, I dunno, weird I guess? I can't say exactly what was wrong with it, but something was up." Aqui added on, not too sure of herself.

"What did you call me?" Penny said, significantly more serious than before.

Six blinked a few times. _"Where did she come from?!"_ Allie said, confused as to how someone could move so fast.

Yang immediately started apologizing. "No, I mean, I didn't think you could hear me-" as if that was supposed to make anything better, but Penny cut her off.

"No, not you." she pointed to Ruby. "You."

"Me?" Ruby squeaked. "I, I don't know what I, um, uh…"

"You called me friend. Am I _really_ your friend?" she asked as she leaned in closer to Ruby.

"Um…" Ruby droned as she looked behind Penny. Everyone else on RWBY was signaling her to say no, but JAMI and Six just shrugged, totally indifferent to her. "Y-yeah, sure, why not?" she said, still unsure, but she gave a chuckle at the end.

Penny started laughing. "Sen-SATIONAL! We can paint our nails, try on clothes, and even talk about cute boys!"

Ruby looked like she almost immediately regretted her decision. "Was this what it was like when you first met me?" she asked Weiss.

"No, she's far more coordinated."

Yang looked around awkwardly. "Sooo, what are you doing in Vale?"

Penny looked over to her. "I'm here to fight in the tournament!"

Weiss blinked. "…Wait, you're fighting in the Vytal Festival?"

Penny turned around again. "I'm combat ready!" she said, giving a salute.

"…Forgive me, but you don't look the part." Weiss said, looking Penny up and down.

"Says the girl wearing a dress." Blake snidely commented.

"It's a combat skirt!"

Ruby slid next to Weiss. "Yeahh!" she said, and they high fived.

Six shook his head. "Penny actually looks more combat ready than most everyone else here, barring myself, Marshall, and Julius."

Yang leaned over to him. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, for starters, Penny's hair is short, which makes it harder to grab you in close quarters combat. It's not regulation standard, but it's probably what most noncoms would be willing to let you get away with. I could take you, Weiss, Blake, and Aqui down to the ground in a fight just by grabbing your hair."

"I'd kill anyone who as much as touches my hair, Nax."

"Sure, but moving on, Penny's wearing boots, or at least, I think she is. Weiss has high heels, and I don't need to tell you why fighting in them is a miserable idea. Penny's dress isn't also excessively large like Ruby's and Weiss' are, which makes you harder to grab. Ruby's cape is also way too long, which makes her easier to grab in close quarters. The only thing Penny's missing is a plate carrier and she'd be golden." Six finished.

"But what about you? You have a big cape, don't you?" Ruby said.

"That I do, Ruby, that I do. The difference is, my duster starts at the waist level. Your cape starts at the neck, and is also considerably larger. They have less of an area to grab me by than they do you."

That put a real damper on Ruby's mood.

Weiss stared off into space for a minute, before having a sudden flash of intelligence. "Wait a minute, if you're here for the Vytal Festival, does that mean you know that monkey tailed buffoon?" she asked, shaking Penny.

"The who?"

"The filthy Faunus from the boat!"

"Why do you keep saying that?!" Blake suddenly shouted, upset.

"Huh?"

"Stop calling him a buffoon! Stop calling him a degenerate! He's a person!" she said angrily, trying to avoid the fact that she was crushing on him.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Oh, _**I'm sorry**_ , would you like me to stop referring to the trash can as a _trash can_?" she gestured to a nearby can. "Or this lamp post as a lamp post?!"

"Stop it!"

"Stop _**what**_? He clearly broke the law. Give him time, and I'm sure he'll join up with the rest of those White Fang freaks."

Blake balled her fist up in anger. "Why you ignorant little brat!" she yelled as she stormed off.

"How dare you!" Weiss yelled, stomping after Blake and engaging her in an argument again.

"Maaaybe we should be going." Yang awkwardly commented, wat0ching the catfight unfold.

"That makes two of us." Marshall said, although he was partially in awe at the shitshow going down in front of him.

"This's gone on long enough." Six said as he reached for his holster and pulled out Sweet Revenge, pointed it in the air, and fired once. That stopped the catfight immediately, and all eyes were on him. "Listen up, dipshits! Evidently, since you two can't fucking control your goddamn estrogen, we're going to have a little family sitdown with daddy Nax back at Beacon. I don't give a FUCK what you have to say, you're coming with me, and we're going to have a little fucking chat back at the dorms." Six commanded with a very rare amount of authority.

"But she-" Weiss started, but Six interrupted her.

"Shut the fuck up. I don't give two shits who started it. As far as I'm concerned, you're both in the wrong." he commanded, and that shut both of them up, and they silently followed the group.

Six leaned over to Penny. "Sorry you had to see that."

"…It's okay!" she beamed.

* * *

 **RWBY'S DORM**

 **6:30 PM**

* * *

All of RWBY, as well as Six, were seated in RWBY's dorm for the sitdown that Six had more or less forced them into at gunpoint. Blake and Weiss were seated directly across from each other, and Ruby, Yang, and Six were seated in a semicircle around the beds. The sound of crickets was deafening in comparison to how quiet it was in the room.

"…Weiss, you should probably go first." Six said, carefully eyeing the two of them.

Weiss took in a deep breath. "I don't see why this is such a big problem."

"That IS the problem." Blake immediately responded, clearly still angry.

"Blake, do you realize you're defending a genocidal organization that hates humanity and wants nothing more than to wipe us off the face of the planet? The Faunus of the White Fang are pure evil!"

Blake stood up. "There's no such thing as pure evil! Why do you _think_ they hate humanity so much?! It's because of people like Cardin! People like _you_ , that forced the White Fang to take such drastic measures!"

Six interjected. "Nobody forced the White Fang to do anything. They got where they are now willingly."

Weiss took this in. "People like _**me**_?!"

"You're discriminatory!"

"I'm a victim!"

Six raised an eyebrow. "…How so?"

Weiss sat back down, and took in a deep breath. "Do you want to know _why_ I despise the White Fang so much? Why I'm not _particularly fond_ of Faunus? It's because they've been at war with my family for years." Weiss said in a much lower voice, moving over to the window, leaning on a cabinet. "War. As in, actual bloodshed. We've all had targets on our backs for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a little girl, I've watched family and friends disappear. Board members; executed. An entire traincar full of Dust; stolen. Every day, my father would come home furious, and that made for a very difficult childhood." she said as she punched the cabinet she was leaning on.

Ruby got up and tried to comfort Weiss. "Weiss, I…" but Weiss turned back around to face Blake, shrugging Ruby off.

"No!" Weiss suddenly yelled. "You want to know _**why**_ I despise the White Fang?! It's because they're a bunch of liars! Thieves! And murderers!"

"Well maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!" Blake retorted, and everyone went silent.

It took several seconds for the "we" to process in everyone's mind.

Blake stepped back. "I…" was all she said, before she ran out of the room, whizzing between Six and Ruby.

"Blake! Come back!" Ruby yelled as she stumbled after her.

Six just leaned back in his chair, letting his head hang against the back of the chair.

"Fuck." was all Six could think.

* * *

 **SUNDAY**

 **VALE**

 **1:21 PM**

* * *

Julius, Six, and the remainder of RWBY were searching for Blake, wherever she was.

"…She's been gone all weekend." Ruby said, hanging her head, depressed that Blake had abandoned them.

"Blake's a big girl, I'm sure she can handle herself." Weiss said nonchalantly, not actually caring that her teammate was gone.

Yang shot Weiss an evil look. "Weiss, come on, she's one of our teammates."

"Is she? We all heard what she said."

"Yes, we did, and yes, she still is your teammate, Weiss." Six said, hands in his pockets. "If she was still with the Fang, she'd have killed you earlier."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "What a comforting thought."

"Maybe she is a Fang, maybe she's not. Point is, we still need to find her."

"…I just hope she's okay."

The four continued walking, until Ruby started calling out for Blake.

"Blaaake! Where are you?!"

Yang joined in. "Blaaaake!"

Weiss didn't say anything, and Ruby turned to her. "Weiss! You're not helping!" she complained.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "You know who might be able to help? The police!"

Julius twirled some 7.62 bullets between his fingers. "Bad idea. Cops're likely to shoot her if they find out she's a White Fang." he idly commented.

Weiss turned around to face him. "How did you know that?"

"Know what?"

"That Blake was with those criminal degenerates, dunce!"

Julius smirked. "With how loud you two were being, you're lucky you didn't wake up the entire school up." Weiss' expression went blank. Evidently, she never considered that yelling at each other with an open window was a terrible idea.

Yang turned her head to look at Weiss from the corner of her eyes. "Even still, I say we should hear Blake's side of the story, Weiss."

Weiss turned her nose up. "And I say you'll all realize that _**I was right.**_ " she said, in her typical condescending tone.

" _Penny's right behind you."_ Allie said.

Six turned around, and sure enough, Penny was trailing behind Weiss. "Hey, Penny." he said nonchalantly.

Penny beamed. "Hello, Nax!"

"Hi, Penny." everyone reflexively said, before moving to a stop to process what they had just said. They all quickly turned around and stared at the awkward girl. "Gah! Penny! Where did you come from!?" Ruby yelled, surprised.

"Hey, guys! What are you all up to?" Penny asked, blissfully unaware of the situation.

Everyone looked at each other, but Yang was the first to speak up. "We're looking for Blake."

Penny spaced out for a second. "Ooooohhh! You mean the Faunus girl!"

Ruby blinked. "…How did _you_ know that?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"Uh, the cat ears?" Penny said, pointing to her head.

"What cat ears? She wears a…" Yang trailed off. "…bow." she finished, and everyone went silent.

" _Knew it."_ Allie commented, sounding pretty smug.

"…So, where is she?" Penny asked, looking around briefly.

Ruby shrugged. "That's the thing, we don't know. She's been gone since Friday."

Penny gasped, and ran up to Ruby, grabbing her in a vice grip. "That's terrible! Don't worry, Ruby my friend!" she let go, and put her hands on her hips. "I won't rest until we find your teammate!" she said with an admittedly rare amount of determination for someone who was basically a stranger.

"Uh, that's okay, really, that's really nice of you, Penny," Ruby awkwardly said. Six noticed that Weiss and Yang had already made their escape, leaving just Julius and himself with Penny and Ruby. "but we're okay. Right guys?" she said, looking behind Penny, only to see both her partner, and her sister, had abandoned them. "Oh." she said sadly.

Julius tapped Ruby on the shoulder. "We're not getting any closer to finding Blake by standing around."

Ruby suddenly looked determined. "Right! Onward!" she yelled, pointing in the direction the group was heading earlier, and marching forward, Julius in tow. Penny skipped along next to Ruby, and Six was in the back, hands in his pockets.

Allie appeared on the visor, and remotely muted the microphone. _"You wanna talk?"_ she asked, concerned.

"About what?"

" _About Blake."_

"What's there to talk about? I tried to fix their friendship, managed to fuck it up, just like a million other things. Now Yang and Ruby are upset about it, Blake's missing, and Weiss and Blake hate each other's guts." Six said, dejected at yet another failure.

Allie looked thoughtful for a bit. _"…Nope!"_ she said with a smile, eyes closed, head cocked to the side.

Six raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'nope'? If I hadn't forced them into the talk, we wouldn't be in this situation. End of story."

Allie started playing with her scarf, and opened her right eye. _"This would have happened whether or not you got involved, Six. People don't just have a big argument like that, only to not continue it later on. You didn't do anything wrong to cause Blake to run away."_ she reassured her partner.

"But what if I did?"

Allie stopped playing with her scarf. _"Even in the incredibly unlikely event that you did somehow cause this, I refuse to believe you went in with nothing but the best intentions."_ Allie brushed some of her white hair aside. _"Sure, you could have been a lot less forceful and commanding about it, but I refuse to believe that you'd intentionally destroy a relationship. That's not the Six that I know."_

"…Thanks, Allie."

She smiled. _"Any time, Six."_ Allie said, before disappearing from the visor.

"So, all of you are friends with Blake?" Penny suddenly asked.

"Ruby is. Nax and I are more like acquaintances with Blake."

"Right." Six replied.

"So, you're all mad at her?" Penny continued.

"Yes-I, well… we're not. Weiss is." Ruby answered.

"Is _she_ friends with Blake?"

Ruby shrugged. "That's kinda up in the air right now."

"But _why_?"

"Let's just say that the groups that Weiss and Blake grew up around… strongly disagree with each other, and we'll leave it at that." Six said, trying to explain the situation without giving away that Blake was with the White Fang.

Penny cocked her head to the side, but didn't say anything, and the group continued on.

* * *

 **9:43 PM**

* * *

Six and Julius both yawned. They'd been out searching for Blake for hours, and were about ready to head back to Beacon and turn in for the night. After all, the streets of Vale were mostly abandoned by now, and that was about as good a sign as any that they should get home. Penny seemed no less energetic and hyperactive than she did when she first showed up, and even Ruby was getting tired.

Before anyone could suggest they go home, there was a bright flash in the sky, and a loud explosion. They all turned around, and there was a rising fire, and a huge smoke cloud.

"Oh, no…" Ruby said nervously.

Julius was already gone in a moment, and Six, Penny, and Ruby quickly followed him.

* * *

 **9:45 PM**

* * *

Julius kept hearing explosions, and he managed to climb on top of a warehouse in the dockyard to see what was going on. Between a stack of shipping containers, and the ocean, was a Bullhead, bearing the symbol of the White Fang. More importantly, there were rapid, but brief explosions underneath one of the cranes that moved the shipping containers. Under what little moonlight there was, Julius could see vague outlines of people moving around, fighting, so Julius went prone on the roof until he could see what was going on.

Julius heard someone shout, and saw someone drop from behind the crane into the impromptu fighting pit, out of view. Another Bullhead showed up, marked with another White Fang emblem. It hovered over the crane, and then dropped seven White Fang goons down as backup. The explosions had died down by now, and he could faintly here the sound of a brawl, but he stayed put.

The same person that jumped down from the crane came into Julius' view, fighting off one of the White Fang agents with some sort of staff, twirling it around like a show off. He whacked the agent upside the head with it, knocking his mask off, and then jumped above the guy, kicking him behind cover. Another shot rang out, and a tracer came flying from behind cover, but the Faunus tanked the round. Blake, or, at least, Julius was sure it was Blake, came flying over the Faunus, and managed to drive the guy out from behind the container, and Julius finally got a good look at him.

His heartrate slowed dramatically, and Julius could feel his blood running cold.

White coat.

Orange hair.

Black bowler hat.

 _Roman._

In that moment, all sense left him. It was like being consumed by a fiery inferno of rage, but Julius didn't care. He grabbed Thunderstick, and dashed off the roof, straight into the fray. Nobody had expected him. Not Blake, not the monkey Faunus, and certainly not Roman. He shoulder charged straight into Roman from the side, facing Blake and the monkey Faunus as he did so. They didn't even have time to process that Julius existed, let alone that their attacks missed. Both of them fell to the ground as Roman was pushed out of the way by Julius. Roman was knocked back, much closer to the ocean, and barely had time to get his bearings before Julius charged him again, but Roman managed to catch Thunderstick with the handle of Melodic Cudgel, locking them face to face.

"Angry little runt, aren't you?" Roman taunted, a little bloodied, but barely any worse for wear. Excepting, of course, his brand new eyepatch.

Julius headbutted Roman, knocking him back, and Julius tore Melodic Cudgel from his hands, pointing the cane at Torchwick's face, fully intent on firing, regardless of the consequences. However, Roman knocked the cane out of Julius' hands just before he fired, resulting in the shot going wide and hitting the crane, knocking one of the support beams into a pile of containers. This caused the containers to topple over, and more than a few ruptured, sending their contents into the air. One of the containers landed near Blake and the other Faunus, who had just regained their bearings, and they rolled out of the way, separated from Julius. The majority of the containers that ruptured must have been carrying Ice Dust, because the air temperature suddenly got significantly cooler, definitely well below freezing.

Julius charged Roman again, and Roman dashed out of the way, firing a shot into a pile of Fire and Water Dust that had formed from several ruptured containers. Almost immediately, the entire area fogged up with steam, and Julius lost sight of Roman.

That just made him even more mad.

Julius jumped up twice, and started running as fast as he could through the fog, but slow enough that he could take in his surroundings. He kept prodding the edges of the fog, mentally mapping how large it was, and where it ended.

Eventually Julius decided he knew enough, and started running the same path he had been at full speed. It didn't take long for a vortex to form, and Julius stopped when he felt that it had enough speed, grabbing on to a nearby guard rail to not get blown away. Soon after, the fog had dispersed, sucked away into the vortex, and Julius could see most of the dockyard again.

"HEY!" Ruby shouted from the same rooftop that Julius had been on little more than a minute ago.

"Oh! If it isn't Little Red and her troglodyte companion! Isn't it past your bed times?" Roman yelled, taunting them, his voice not too far from where Julius was now.

" _Big mistake."_ Julius thought to himself as he made a mad dash for Roman's position. As soon as he turned the corner, he saw Roman shoot another grenade, and he directly hit Ruby with it, blasting her back, but Six was unscathed. Julius raised Thunderstick, and dumped his entire magazine in Roman's general direction, barely bothering to aim, let alone control the recoil. When the mag ran dry, Julius transformed Thunderstick into Bushwacker and Chopper, and charged forwards, fully intent on running Roman through.

Roman instead grabbed Julius by the arms, barely holding him in place, but still preventing him from killing Roman. "You really have it out for me, don't you?" he taunted.

Julius didn't gratify him with an answer, and kneed Roman in the gut, causing him to loosen his grip _just enough_ that he could overpower Roman, an opportunity that Julius practically pounced on.

In nearly an instant, Roman's left hand was severed, although Julius had no time to savor his victory, as Roman almost immediately retaliated by firing Melodic Cudgel directly behind Julius, with the resulting explosion sending shrapnel into Julius, and the concussive force finally knocking him out.

Roman half debated killing Julius right then and there, but his current physical state, as well as his situation, quickly put an end to that train of thought. The Bullheads were coming in for their gun-runs, and it was time to get the hell out of dodge.

Roman quickly hobbled to one of the Bullheads with its ramp down, and White Fang soldiers providing covering fire. Bullets were whizzing by him, cracking off of the concrete. Not like from an automatic weapon, but from a frustrated sniper. One of the White Fang actually got sniped, and he fell from the Bullhead, into the ocean. Roman quickly jumped on board, and the Bullhead pulled away. A few of the others also tried to follow suit, but they were cut in half by beams of green light, spilling their crews and contents into the ocean. The dockyard quickly faded into the horizon as Roman clutched the stump where his hand used to be.

* * *

Six stood up. They'd just finished clearing out the straggling White Fang, so that just left Julius.

Six immediately dropped off the roof, not caring whether it'd hurt or not. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he was at Julius' side, tending to his wounds.

Before doing anything else, Six checked his pulse.

Alive, but only barely.

Six carefully took Julius' singed and damaged plate carrier off and set it aside, before taking Julius' red shirt off to see what the damage was.

Julius' entire back was bloodied, and even a little burned. There were small cuts all over his body, but no pieces of fragmentation sticking out of his body. Six couldn't do anything about the burns, but he knew how to treat the bleeding. Six took Julius' shirt and grabbed his knife, sticking it through the shoulder, cutting it out. He then ripped it to make a rag, and grabbed a bottle of whiskey.

" _You're drinking_ _ **now?!**_ _"_ Allie suddenly shouted, shocked.

Six ignored her, and poured the whiskey on the rag to disinfect it. It was less than ideal, but it's not like Six had more options for sterile medical equipment. He then wiped the rag over Julius' wounds to prevent infection, and then pulled out a bandage, and carefully began dressing the wounds. There was only so much that Six could actually do for Julius with what little he had.

Ruby ran up behind Six, and looked down at Julius'. "Is he… going to be alright?" she asked, uncertain if Julius was going to live or not.

Six didn't take his attention off of Julius. "Get a line to Beacon. Tell them to send out a medical team to the Vale dockyards, fast. Go!"

Ruby nodded, and ran off to get on the line to Beacon. When Six was done dressing his wounds, he put Julius' shirt back on to prevent exposure.

Ten minutes later, two Bullheads arrived, one a standard transport, and the other a medical Bullhead. Paramedics quickly picked Julius up and put him on a stretcher, and, after Six gave them a brief rundown on what he did for Julius, they grabbed his plate carrier and departed.

Nobody spoke on the way home.

* * *

 **UNKNOWN WAREHOUSE IN VALE**

 **11:30 PM**

* * *

Roman clutched the stump where his hand used to be, and sighed as he set a case of Dust on his desk.

First, that sand-crawling troglodyte from Vacuo takes his eye, and now some little runt took his hand. Fantastic.

He couldn't wrap his head around why the runt was so angry. He was obviously determined to kill him, more so than any other who had tried to take revenge against him. Clearly, Roman had wronged the kid at some point, but _where_ was the question. Roman had committed more than his fair share of atrocities, usually for profit or mob favors. The kid looked 17 or so, so that narrowed it down to a few places he could have been from. Nakatoro, Hell's Run, maybe Moonvale, but that job was thorough. Nobody could have survived. Then again…

Roman's thoughts were interrupted as he heard the warehouse door open behind him, and he turned around. "…How very disappointing, Roman." Cinder said with disdain. "We were expecting… more from you."

Roman nervously laughed. "Hey, you were the ones who suggested working with those animals from the White Fang. Not my fault they're useless."

Cinder laughed. "…And you will continue to work with them." she said, a fireball appearing in her hand. "We have big plans for you, Roman. All we ask for is… a little cooperation."

* * *

 **Chapter 12 is out and done, cool and good. This also marks the end of volume one.**

 **Did you know that this chapter was originally going to be focused around the Cult? I cut it due to not being satisfied with the results, and am instead saving that stuff for post-Beacon.**

 **The little gremlin dude who sells Six whiskey is based on Nubby Nubbs from the All Guardsmen Party, which I had been watching when I wrote that segment. Pretty good watch/read if you're into Warhammer 40k. I don't advise you watch Neckbeardia's videos on it, though. His text to speech is shit and he doesn't bother correcting the diction to make it not stupid.**

 **As always, leave reviews.**

' **Till next time, and happy fuckin' New Years.**

 **-Tweak**


	13. Regarding Grimm Retreat's Future

**So i've been thinking for a while about something.**

 **Specifically, Grimm Retreat's future.**

 **I've droned on ad-fucking-nauseam about how it's my baby and how I refuse to let it die and all that, and how much better the rewrite is than the original, and the more I think on that, the more I find that that argument fails to hold up to both scrutiny and reality.**

 **Yes, I think the rewrite is significantly better than the original, but the truth is that I'm burned out on writing for it. I don't like RWBY, in fact, I think it's downright fucking awful, and I'm finding it increasingly more difficult to write for something I don't like. I keep wanting to push for longer chapters, but I keep finding myself restricted by the need to follow RWBY's story, which pushes my own characters to the side. It's a goddamn pain in the ass.**

 **I've found myself in a bind story-wise with something I don't like, and am having more difficulty writing for it due to that lack of enjoyment or enthusiasm for it, so I'll just cut to what you're probably thinking right now.**

 **Grimm Retreat is cancelled.**

 **I take no pleasure in this, but without Grimm Retreat's rewrite, my writing skills would still be middle school tier.**

 **That said, I know it's in terrible taste to shill for something while the corpse is still fresh, but I've taken up writing a Star Wars fic called The Rise of Pulsar Company. It's in a setting that I not only enjoy, but also one where I have a lot of freedom to move around in, and it doesn't follow the stories of any of the books, games, or movies, so everything is entirely up to my own writing skills, unlike Grimm Retreat, which became a clusterfuck in my eyes as of Chapter 12.**

 **Here's the link to Pulsar Company:** **fanfiction (dot net)/s/13192940/1/The-Rise-of-Pulsar-Company**


	14. Finale and Farewell

**Grimm Retreat is still dead.**

 **There, now that your expectations are tempered as to why the fuck I'm updating – here's why:**

 **This is not a full chapter or revival of the story, rather, this chapter consists mostly of what was supposed to go into chapter 13 up to a point, and after that, it's basically a highlight reel of "key" moments in Grimm Retreat – big setpieces, important moments, shit like that.**

 **But before I do that, let's look at the negative responses I got when announcing this was cancelled.**

 **Echoclonet says "crap". What a lovely response, very valuable feedback, thank you!**

 **Silver0117 says "What a waste of time."**

 **Was it really a waste of time if you at least got some sort of enjoyment out of it?**

 **A guest named Yang Xiao Long said this:** **"** **Okay first you wasted our time in this story i don't give a fuck on the other story of yours i really don't** **  
** **Secondly if you don't like it then why the fuck you even bother writing it in the first place you dumb moron. Fuck you dumbass fuck you"**

 **Just, let that one sink in. Holy fucking shit, how dense can someone be? I'm not a goddamn automaton, you twit.**

 **Anyways, everything below that line right there is basically untouched from how I originally wrote it. Obviously this is just a condensed version of the story down into a few key moments and it lacks dialogue that would otherwise be used for character development, so I don't expect it to have the same 'punch' that it would if the story were still going, but it'll at least provide some form of closure.**

 **One more thing before I turn this over to Tweak from nearly a year ago – I've been watching Jojo's Bizarre Adventure lately (** **I actually finished the first part of Stardust Crusaders as of writing this sentence** **Tweak from a month later here, I finished Part 5.) and have come to realize that Six's Semblance is basically him having multiple Stands, since the weapons carry manifestations of people's fighting spirits. That, and Aqui's Semblance is basically Crazy Diamond, except she can only fix living things and she doesn't have the punch ghost.**

 **Keep in mind, I only started watching Jojo a few days ago, this was completely unintentional on my part. Whoops.**

 **Also, in case you're wondering, Battle Tendency and Young Joseph are my favorites, although Josuke and DiU really grew on me.**

 **Anyways, enjoy this last hurrah for Grimm Retreat.**

* * *

 **Hey, wanna hear something really fucking sweet?**

 **My old power supply ate shit like a week ago, and I only got my computer back yesterday (1/15/2019) with a new 650 watt power supply, and I had an issue where my computer would boot into a black screen of death for no reason today, which I managed to fix after like two hours of troubleshooting.**

 **Fucking.**

 _ **Awesome.**_

 **Review time.**

 **To kpmh2001: That's my problem, I don't want to cut detail to stick it within a certain rating.**

 **To Engineer455: This came out before Fuckup 76 did, hence why there's no excavator power armor. Not like I'd put it in, anyways. Fuck Fallout 76.**

 **To IHateGenericCereal: Believe me, Ozpin and Salem have both been changed entirely from who they canonically were. Not their behavior, but their backstories. This is an inevitability of writing for a still in-progress series, but I've already made it pretty clear this is an alternate universe, what with Vacuo not just being total anarchy for most of its history, and, you know, the whole Earth thing. It uses official canon as a guideline, but not a rulebook, basically.**

 **To WATERDOG139: I hate the idea of stimpaks as a "cure-all". The fact that you can just jam a bunch of needles in your body to stop bleeding and even broken fucking bones is ridiculous. Stimpaks exist, but not only does Six not have any, as they were all in the car, they don't work like they do in the games where they magically heal your wounds. They work more like small blood transfusions, so they do heal, but wounds need to be properly dressed, otherwise it's a waste of a stimpak.**

 **To the guest who didn't put a name: I know about psykers my guy. I'm debating on whether or not to include them in Grimm Retreat, though. If I do, I may make them like 40k psykers where they're liable to just explode or summon Grimm accidentally or some shit. Y'know, cause the blowout fucked with people and caused semblances, which could have fucked with Psykers. I dunno, lmfao.**

* * *

 **JAMI'S DORM**

 **10:05 PM**

 **(A/N: Play Padme's Ruminations from Revenge of the Sith)**

* * *

Nobody was speaking.

Marshall, Izzy, and Aqui were all sitting on their beds, staring at a single corner of the room. Six had his helmet off, and he was sitting next to Aqui, carefully watching her. JAMI's whole room was like a little themepark, with everyone having their own corners with their own personal themes. Izzy's corner had a little curtain she could move to hide herself behind, although it was currently open, revealing a small bookshelf and some photos. Marshall's was distinctly utilitarian and spartan, and looked more like something from a military barracks than a prestigious school, and Aqui's corner was rather girlish, with a few boy band albums and posters adorning her wall.

The only corner without anything as much as resembling life was Julius' corner. His bed was totally unmade. Covers were strewn about, pillows were haphazardly set back together, and empty soda cans littered his corner. The only thing even suggesting that it belonged to Julius was Thunderstick sitting on a rack above the bed.

A cool breeze entered the room through the open window, but still, nobody said anything. They all just stared at the empty bed, totally devoid of words. None of them had dealt with something like this before, or in Aqui's case, over a decade.

Slowly, Aqui started sniffling, and Six could see small tears making their way down her face. She pulled her legs in, and covered them with her cyan t-shirt that was large enough on her that the neck on it exposed her right shoulder. Her bangs covered her eyes from the side, but Six could faintly hear her crying.

She couldn't hold herself together anymore, and broke down, crying into Six's chest. Six didn't say anything. After all, how could he? He'd never had someone that close to him nearly die. Everyone back in Vegas was more like a close friend, but Aqui and Julius were more than that, they were totally inseparable. They'd been through everything together in life, and for one of them to nearly die? Six couldn't imagine how she felt inside. The only person he shared a relationship that close with was Allie, and while she did watch him nearly die, at the time, they hadn't been together as long as these two had.

"…I warned him… not to go after him…" she cried, not caring about maintaining any sort of appearance anymore.

She started pounding on Six's Saturnite armor plating with surprising force, repeating "It's not fair!" over and over again, her sobbing intensifying each time.

Six just held her, trying to console her. Both Izzy and Marshall were looking over at her, sad.

Slowly, Aqui started to quiet down, but she kept her face buried in Six's chest. Izzy slowly got up, walked over, tapping Aqui on the shoulder. "Aqs, you should probably get some rest. You'll feel better in the morning."

Aqui said nothing as she begrudgingly let go of Six, and collapsed on her bed. Six got up and grabbed his helmet, holding it at his side, and Izzy covered Aqui up. "I'll make you some tea in the morning. Promise." she said softly, and Aqui made a noise that vaguely sounded like acknowledgement, so Six took his leave.

He stepped outside of JAMI's dorm, and was greeted by RWBY waiting outside in their pajamas. "How's she taking it?" Ruby asked quietly.

"Poorly." Six said flatly, tempted to reach into his duster for a bottle of whiskey, but deciding against it. "She's broken up over it."

RWBY looked down at the floor.

"I'm going to bed." Six said, before retiring to his own room directly across the hall. As soon as the door shut behind him, Allie appeared.

" _Poor girl. I know how she feels."_

Six looked over to her. "We weren't together that long when Frosthill went down, though?"

Allie shook her head. _"That's not what I was referring to."_

"Oh?"

" _I was talking about Riley."_ Allie said wistfully, looking out the glass door to the balcony.

"…Your old operator?"

Allie paused. _"Yeah."_ she said as she put her holographic fingers up against the window, her white hair seeming suddenly flat against her body. _"I was made in 2075 and was immediately assigned to him, so we had been together for, what, five years when the Roboscorpion malfunctioned?"_ Allie paused, briefly thinking about it. _"Yeah, five years is about right. He wasn't immediately killed by the roboscorpion. They rushed him off to Y-17 for treatment. He died less than an hour later. Autodocs couldn't save him."_ Allie closed her hands into a fist, not an angry one, but a sad one. _"I cried for days. The only true friend I had was there on the autopsy table, dead."_

"…What from?" Sex asked hesitantly, before immediately regretting it.

" _Severe brain trauma and internal bleeding. He might as well have been dead on the spot."_ Six remained silent, and Allie turned around to face him. _"I know it'd be harder on me now if it were you instead of him on that table."_

That immediately dispelled Six's assumptions about her relationship with Riley. "Really, now?"

Allie nodded. _"Looking back on my memories with Riley, he wasn't all that great. He was a bit rude to everyone, and I don't think he really liked me."_

"…What makes you think that?"

Allie turned back to the window. _"Vex."_ she said plainly, as if the word had no meaning to her despite Vex basically being her older sister. _"I think he hated me, actually. Not because of a personality flaw, but because he regretted handing Vex over, and viewed me as nothing more than an inferior replacement."_

Six walked up behind her. "Well, _I_ certainly don't think you're inferior," he reassured her, and she immediately turned around and hugged him. "and I sure as hell don't hate you."

" _I know you don't."_

* * *

 **8:10 AM**

 **(A/N: Stop Padme's Ruminations if you haven't already)**

* * *

Six heard three raps on his door just as he stepped out of the bathroom in the Beacon uniform. "Who is it?"

"It's Ozpin."

Not the person Six was expecting. "…Door's open." he said, and the door creaked open, revealing a somber looking Ozpin, coffee in hand. "Hello."

Ozpin looked to him, and briefly smiled. "Hello, Nax." he said as he let himself in. "I have some news for you regarding Julius." There was a brief pause from Ozpin, but Six stayed silent. "He… might live."

Allie, in Six's armor, walked up behind Six. _"Might?"_

Ozpin looked to her. "While Nax did an admirable job dressing and disinfecting Julius' wounds with what little he had, the internal damage was… extreme." he said, taking a sip from his coffee.

"How extreme?" Six asked.

Ozpin looked into space for a moment, trying to remember all the details, and then came back to reality. "Extreme internal bleeding, multiple fractures and broken bones, and at least forty four foreign objects were embedded in his body, largely consisting of metal fragmentation and sharp pieces of concrete, plus a moderate infection from raw Dust getting into his wounds before they were dressed."

" _Jesus."_ Allie remarked.

"That'd be a death sentence where we come from." Six said, taken aback at just how severe his wounds were, and he was right. If Julius had been injured like that back in the Mojave, a mercy kill would have been less painful.

"…We have him stabilized, and I have the medical staff working hard to keep him alive. That, in combination with the natural healing that Aura provides, has me believing that he will survive."

"…Did you tell the rest of his team?"

Ozpin nodded. "Yes, however, there's something I wanted to ask you, Nax," Six raised an eyebrow. "Would you be willing to… fill in for Julius?" he paused briefly, trying to pick his words.

"You mean like, take his position as team leader?"

Ozpin nodded. "Only temporarily."

Six hesitated. "…I don't know. Maybe? I'd need to talk to JAMI about that."

Ozpin closed his eyes and half-nodded. "I understand. You don't have to answer now. That will be all." Ozpin said, taking his leave.

Nax and Allie looked at each other, and Allie shrugged, not sure what to make of the situation. Six shrugged back.

* * *

 **3:15 PM**

* * *

Six readied himself, grabbing the katana with both hands and holding it in front of him, feet firmly planted in the ground. Aqui was directly across from him, and she held Riser with one hand placed behind her head, blade pointed at Six. Her other hand was pointed towards Six, two fingers outstretched, and her whole body was lower to the ground, slanted back.

The usually bright, expressive colors in her hair were visibly desaturated, and her hair looked like gravity was weighing down on it more. Hell, her skin looked even more desaturated and lifeless than her hair did. She stared at Six with an eerily familiar amount of deadness in her eyes, but Aqui was far from gone.

Neither of them said anything, and just watched each other carefully, like it was a duel. Six inched forward, and Aqui inched forward. Nobody made any sudden movements, carefully circling each other. Aqui twisted her wrist, and swung Riser at Six in an underhanded fashion, but Six was prepared, and blocked it, before striking back at the base of Riser, knocking it out of Aqui's hands and sending it clattering away. Six pointed the tip of the katana at Aqui's face, and she didn't even react.

"Grats." she said dejectedly, her bangs covering the majority of her face, leaving only her left eye to look at Six. Aqui went over to the edge of the roof, and sat down, feet dangling over the side, not even bothering to pick Riser up. Six sheathed his katana and sat next to her.

"Aqui-" Six started, but was immediately cut off.

Aqui's gaze shot to Six. "No." she said with an uncharacteristic amount of hostility.

"But I-"

"Shut it." she glared, before returning to staring off at the sky. "I know you're going to try and pull some magic words out of your ass to try and get me to cool down over this, so I'm just going to say this now; save your breath." Six stayed quiet, and Aqui continued. "My best friend's just about dead. There's nothing you could use from experience to try and relate to my situation. There's nothing you could possibly _say_ to help me. Don't even try."

Six kept quiet, and sat there with her. He wished he could help her, he really did, but her sudden hostility made that next to impossible. She just needed to go through the cycle before he could talk to her.

Cardin had been sitting by the window, and was only half listening until Aqui was disarmed. Rumors had been floating around all day that Julius was either dead or in critical condition. Nobody on JAMI was saying anything, so the rumors just kept going.

Cardin wasn't surprised to find out that the rumors were true, in fact, he actually kind of hoped it was. Julius had it coming for a long time, it's been long overdue for what he did to Harrier.

Then again, Aqui's reaction had… resonated with him? Call it a pang of consciousness.

He'd kind of just assumed that both Aqui and Julius were always assholes, not, you know, people with feelings. She was experiencing what everyone on CRDL felt after Harrier was crippled. Maybe that gave him a sense of déjà vu, maybe it was something else. Who knows?

Whatever the case, Cardin quickly cast away those thoughts, deeming them "pussy shit" mentally, but they could only be pushed to the back of his mind, where they would simmer for months to come.

* * *

 **That marks the end of what I had written down for Grimm Retreat Chapter 13. That last bit was actually the start of a redemption arc for Cardin, which you'll see in a bit here. Julius would have survived, although to what extent, I've totally forgotten due to the passage of time and focusing on Pulsar Company. I never wrote it down in my notes. Whoops.**

 **Now it's time for the highlight reel of shit; first up is the Beacon Dance.**

* * *

Six stared out over the Beacon Campus, occasionally stealing glances up at the broken moon. Even though it'd been some several months since he found out the truth about Remnant, it still boggled his mind how something like this could have happened. How powerless he was to stop it.

In a muted flash, Allie materialized next to him, leaning over the guard railing. _"Lovely night, Six."_ she commented, giving him a quick, cheerful smile.

Six bent over, resting his arms on the railings. "I suppose it is, Allie." he replied, not facing her.

"' _You suppose'?"_ Allie questioned, sitting up straighter. _"Don't you know what tonight is?"_

"…A cool Saturday night?" Six sarcastically replied, not really paying attention.

" _No, dummy!"_ she answered, her hologram flickering in offense. _"It's the Beacon Dance!"_

"…So?" he replied nonchalantly, before undoing the seals on his helmet and taking it off, letting the cold winds touch his scarred face. The sight caused Allie to gently brush his cheek as he let his helmet clatter against the floor, grabbed a flask of whiskey from his duster, and then downed it. "I'm not one for big public events, Allie. You of all people should know that." he answered, not looking at her.

Allie visibly pouted. _"I know that, Six. It's just that I really wanted to go – I'm watching the security camera footage right now, and everyone looks like they're having a blast, and-"_ Allie said, stopping herself short, her hologram's jaw dropping.

Glancing at her, Six raised his eyebrow. "'And'?" he questioned, waiting for Allie to go on.

"… _Jaune is in a dress."_ Allie said bluntly. _"And he's dancing with the rest of JNPR. Oh, my god. This is…"_ Allie continued, giggling to herself.

Six blinked once, and then twice. "Let me repeat myself; what?"

Instead of answering his question a second time, Allie caused the security camera footage to appear in front of Six, and yes, Jaune was absolutely in the most feminine dress possible, and JNPR were all doing a dance routine they had probably been practicing for. "…Wow, that's, uh…" Six commented, stunned as he watched the footage. "That sure is something." he said, briefly cracking a smile.

He had to admit, the sight was at least entertaining, although Jaune would absolutely catch shit from CRDL for it. Maybe the faculty, if they felt like being hardasses.

Allie suddenly closed the footage. _"That said, though, I want to ask you something, Six."_ Allie said, quickly composing herself. _"If I could go to the Dance, would you have taken me?"_

"That's not an easy question to answer, Allie."

"… _How so?"_

Slowly exhaling, Six let his gaze fully rest on her holographic figure, her curious blue eyes staring at him with intent. "Being able to take you to the dance would mean you had to be human." he answered, stone-faced. "You being human would mean that everything that makes you, well, _you_ , wouldn't have happened. Your past would have never happened, and we wouldn't have the relationship we have now. You'd be a completely different person."

Allie, however, looked annoyed. _"Six, it was a simple yes or no question, so let me be more specific; If I, with my current personality, state of mind, physical appearance, and memories, were able to go to the Beacon Dance, would you have taken me?"_ she said, sounding slightly condescending.

Six gave her a long look of consideration, before closing his eye. "…Yeah, I'd probably have taken you."

Allie's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. _"Really?!"_ she asked, suddenly excited, although for reasons Six wasn't sure about.

"Didn't I just say so?"

Her hand to her mouth in shock, Allie blinked quickly, and then calmed herself slightly. _"Okay, Six, can you do something for me?"_ she asked, barely containing her excitement. Six raised an eyebrow, waiting for whatever Allie was about to ask of him. _"Can you put your helmet back on?"_

"Tired of seeing my ugly mug already?" Six quipped as he bent down and grabbed the helmet, carefully slipping it back on and re-doing the seals. He glanced up at Allie when he was done. "Alright, now wh-" Six said, suddenly stopping short. His body stood there briefly, and then slowly began to fall over backwards, although Allie quickly took manual control of the suit, slowly backing Six away from the guard railing and laying him flat on the floor.

Without saying anything else, her hologram dissipated.

* * *

"What the hell happened?" Six called out into the dark void he was currently floating through. "Allie! The hell'd you do?!" he shouted in futility.

There was a low, droning noise that pervaded Six's mind, although no matter what, he couldn't find the source, and so he continued to float aimlessly as the droning noise slowly picked up, eventually reaching its peak, and then dropping off.

As soon as it did, Six felt his feet touching hardwood floor, and as his eye quickly adjusted, he realized that he was standing in a one-to-one recreation of the Beacon Dance hall, right down to RWBY's decorations, and there were even holograms of attendees, including Jaune in his dress.

Staring out into the holographic crowd, Six heard footsteps behind him. He turned to see Allie in a long, shoulderless, light blue ballgown with black dress gloves. Her hair had been done up into a ponytail, with two small 'hoops' of hair dangling out from underneath. Her bright blue eyes seemed to shine even brighter than normal, and she had a small, pink flower in her hair.

And, surprisingly, she wasn't a hologram.

"Allie-" Six stammered, shocked at seeing his companion like this.

"Surprised?" she replied, her voice lacking its normal electronic filter. "I made this all for you, Six."

"…How did you bring me here? What even _is_ this place?" Six asked again, briefly scanning the room.

"It's your mind, silly. With how augmented you are, is it really a surprise that I can exercise some control over your brain?" Allie replied, tapping the base of her neck. "I intercepted your neural impulses roughly around here, and transferred them to my own little alternate reality in your brain for now." she explained, visibly excited.

" _And for the record, I did NOT consent to this!"_ a faint, clearly British voice said in the distance, causing Allie to crack a smile.

"I kinda forgot he existed." she said sheepishly, before turning her head back to the double door that led to an open void. "Sorry!" she shouted back, before the doors slammed shut on their own, and Allie turned back to face Six, offering him her hand. "…So, care to join me?"

Cautiously, Six took her hand, and Allie led him to the center of the ballroom, past a holographic Yang and into an open space. "I'll admit, Allie; I've never actually danced with anyone before." he said in a low, almost embarrassed tone.

Allie shot him a glance and a quick smile. "Don't worry, I know how to dance. Part of training my operator to woo socialites in Japan. Just follow my lead."

When the pair got to the center, Allie raised her fingers in the direction of the band stage and snapped them. Instantaneously, a life-sized replica of Frank Sinatra appeared on stage, with a supporting band. Quickly grabbing Six's other hand, the pair began to dance as the replica Sinatra began to sing _Blue Moon_ , the band hitting their notes perfectly.

" _Blue moon, you saw me standing alone,"_ the replica sang, his voice dead on for Sinatra with no imperfections, at least from what Six could tell. Allie slowly lead Six's dance movements, going slow as to not trip him up. _"Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own."_

Allie synchronized her movements to the next few notes, and Six evidently had the same idea.

" _Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for,"_ the replicant continued to sing. _"You heard me sayin' a prayer for, someone I really could care for!"_ Sinatra sang, and Six could swear Allie's eyes brightened even further at his words as they sped up briefly, slowing back down.

" _And then there suddenly appeared before me, the only one my arms will ever hold,"_ Sinatra continued, making some hand gestures into the crowds of holograms. Out of the corner of his eye, Six spotted holograms of Julius and Aqui enjoying themselves in their dance. The hologram of Julius let Aqui fall into his arms, before kissing her on the lips and continuing the dance. _"I heard somebody whisper 'please adore me', and when I looked the moon had turned gold!"_ the replicant went on, as the ballroom lighting tinted gold. _"Blue moon, now I'm no longer alone!"_

Six looked back down at Allie, and she seemed to be… crying? Not tears like when the Deity Brothers damn near gave him a stroke and scared Allie half to death. These were happy tears. Sniffling, Allie quickly wiped them away. "Something wrong, Allie?" Six asked, continuing the dance.

Allie closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, nothing's wrong…" she said, sounding happy. "…It just means so much to me to be able to hold my operator in my arms, even if it's just simulated…"

Six smiled back at her, causing Allie to blush.

The rest of the song went by as a blur, and soon, Six heard Sinatra begin to slow down. _"Blue moon, now I'm no longer alone,"_ the Sinatra hologram sang, getting quieter. _"Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own…"_ it finished, and the crowd of holograms exploded in cheers as Sinatra and the band bowed out.

* * *

 **Play Green and Blue from Halo 4's soundtrack**

* * *

Seeing her chance and deciding it was either now or never, Allie leapt up at Six and kissed him, taking him completely by surprise. Initially, he resisted, but soon fell into the kiss. After a short while of being together, Allie pulled back, her eyes gleaming, and her face flushed. "…I've always wanted to do that." she stated, visibly shaking from just how excited she was.

Still stunned, Six put his palm to his cheek to make sure what he was feeling was real, and sure enough, it was. "…Always?" Six asked.

Allie nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. "Always." she said, wiping the tears away. "…And now I've done it! I've really, actually done it!"

Six smiled at her, tightening his grip on her hands. "…Now that you've done it, how does it feel?"

"Amazing! I've always wanted to do this with you, but…" Allie replied, slowly getting lower in tone.

"But what?"

Allie choked up. "…I always thought that you'd reject me. I mean, how do you love an AI that you can't even touch in the real world?" she said, sounding dejected.

"Like this." Nax replied, before kissing Allie back. Her eyes widened in shock at the sudden requital, and she managed to pull back after briefly enjoying it.

"…Six…" she said, stunned from his reaction.

"…Hm?"

Tears began to well up in Allie's eyes again. "You've just made me the happiest woman in the world, Six."

Pulling her close, Six stroked Allie's hair. "I know, and I'll do it again." he said, letting Allie enjoy herself before she pulled away. "Once this is all over and we've won, I'll see what strings I can pull to make you human, Allie. That way, we won't be left without each other. Two parts of a whole, until the end."

Allie simply wept into Six's arms, before looking up at him, teary eyed and red-faced. "Thank you so much, Six…"

Six continued to stroke her hair. "You're welcome, Allie. It's the least I can do for you." he said in a comforting manner, pulling Allie closer. "Now, this night isn't going to last forever. Should we continue dancing?" Six offered, taking Allie's hand.

Allie wiped her tears one last time, and nodded to him. "…Yes, let's." she said, sounding extremely happy with the events that had just transpired.

Off in the distance, a pair of amber eyes settled on the pair, bemused. _"I'm proud of you, sis."_ she said, before quietly fading into the background noise of Allie's datastreams.

* * *

 **That was the most effort I've concerted onto Grimm Retreat in the past seven months, fuck dude.**

 **Anyways, this segment was planned near the beginning of Grimm Retreat, and yes, that includes the romance bit. Six accomplishes what many players could only dream of doing by romancing the Stealth Suit.**

 **This wasn't originally how it was supposed to pan out, however; after Allie admitted her feelings for Six, a deranged Vex would have burst in, massacred the holographic guests, and attacked Allie and Six with the goal of taking over Six's unconscious body. I cut this for mood whiplash reasons. The Sinatra thing though, that was a new idea I had while writing this segment up for the first time.**

 **The next few segments are set during PvP, Battle of Beacon, and their aftermath. This one in particular follows Julius, and is one of the more rigid ideas I've had for how this would pan out. No, I didn't have a Vytal Festival tournament segment prepared for this as I never actually thought about it, so no Six vs JAMI or what have you.**

* * *

Julius sat in the front row seats of the arena for the upcoming fight, arms crossed, his right leg pushed against the barrier. Aqui flanked his right and Marshall, his left. Izzy was behind Marshall, hiding in his shadow, and Nax was directly behind him. Most of JNPR were also in the front row, to Aqui's right. The crowd was incredibly quiet, staring up at the holoboard for the next matchup.

" _All right, it's time to begin the randomization process for our next fight!"_ Oobleck's voice boomed over the stadium's speakers as the roulette wheel on the board began to spin.

Port cut in. _"And it looks like our first contender is…"_ he said, sounding dramatic and intentionally drawing it out. _"Penny Polendina, from Atlas!"_ he said again as the roulette wheel stopped on her picture, and the crowd began to cheer for her. _"And her opponent will be…"_ Port continued, as the crowd quieted down _"Pyrrha Nikos, from Beacon!"_ he shouted over the system as the crowd _exploded_ into cheers for Pyrrha.

Less than a minute later, the gravlifts came up from below the arena and delivered the two opponents. They appeared to exchange a few words that were inaudible to the crowd, and got into ready stances. _"Finally, are you ready?"_ Oobleck said over the system, and the crowd's cheers only intensified.

" _Three!"_

" _Two!"_

" _One!"_

" _Begin!"_ Oobleck shouted.

Penny immediately started the fight by summoning her swords from her pack, creating a defensive circle around herself, before spinning the circle vertically, lining the swords up, and then sending them after Pyrrha. Instead of dodging around the swords, Pyrrha chose to jump _through_ them, skillfully dodging each one that was sent her way. The swords continued on for a brief moment, before flipping around and forming another stack, flying at Pyrrha again. Glancing behind her, Pyrrha rolled out of the way, and the swords went behind Penny's back, forming another stack.

The new stack swung upwards at Pyrrha, who quickly parried each of the strikes. Shifting four blades behind her back, Penny began to attack with four blades at once, shifting them out with each strike. Attack, shift, attack, shift, attack. She then used a fifth blade from the back row to strike while Pyrrha was distracted, although Pyrrha blocked it with the end of her staff and then backflipped. "Man, I really could learn something from her." Izzy commented, watching the fight with a dazed glee.

Either Port or Oobleck said something, but it was drowned out by the crowd's cheers. Pyrrha charged forward and then jumped on _something_ , using it to launch herself forward with her spear, although Penny created a defensive barrier and blocked the strike, which Pyrrha used to launch herself off right as Penny swiped up twice with her sword wheel. Penny then took the offensive, using multiple swords in her strikes which Pyrrha could only barely keep up with.

Pyrrha slid back and readied her shield, much to the crowd's pleasure. "Goooo Pyrrha!" Julius heard Nora shout from further down the row. Even with all this noise, Nora could still be the loudest in the room.

"Knock her out, Penny!" he heard Nax yell from behind him.

Pyrrha then took the offensive, making multiple strikes on Penny with seemingly little resistance, launching her into the air and preparing for another strike. Twirling around, Penny summoned her swords and blocked two of Pyrrha's attacks, before being knocked back down and landing on her feet, summoning another defensive circle of swords. She then stacked the swords up and spread them around her like a butterfly's wings, aiming them all at Pyrrha. Instead of launching them at her, though, they began to fire green beams of energy in quick succession, which Pyrrha carefully dodged, grabbing her weapon and deflecting the attacks of three swords that had been sent after her. The swords retreated to Penny, who was now charging at Pyrrha.

Crouching low and preparing to stab Penny, Pyrrha connected, launching Penny backwards. She stood up, not keeping watch on her opponent, and looked up to see Penny flying towards her at breakneck speeds. Her guard lowered, Pyrrha didn't react when Penny jumped in the air and kicked her in the face, sending her rolling backwards.

"Pyrrha's getting careless." Marshall commented dryly as Pyrrha did a backflip and readied herself, only for her sword and shield to be knocked out of her hands. " _Really_ careless, actually." Marshall quickly added on. Pyrrha then used her semblance to draw her sword back to her, only for it again to be knocked out of her hands. Penny then raised her hands in the air, pointed her fingers at Pyrrha, and summoned her swords.

Judging by her body language, Pyrrha looked… afraid? Julius wasn't sure why – this attack didn't seem that much different from what Penny had been pulling off moments before. Penny then directed the blades towards Pyrrha, and still scared out of her wits, used her semblance to block the swords and redirect them towards Penny, who was now shocked.

It took a moment to happen, but when it did, Penny slowly broke apart, her arms and legs being cut apart, electrical sparks flying from her wounds, her expression locked in a show of fear. Pyrrha stood there, speechless. The crowd was completely silent, except for one wave of surprised shock that washed over the crowd.

Taken completely by surprise, Julius sat up, eyes wide at what just happened. "Penny was… a robot? What the hell?!" he said, still letting the shock sink in.

"What the fuck?!" Julius heard Nax yell behind him.

Izzy closed her eyes and leaned back. "Two accidents in such a short period of time…" she said quietly, barely audible over the independent reactions of the spectators. "That can't be a coincidence."

Aqui's jaw was hanging open, silently staring at Penny's corpse. She slowly put her hand over her mouth in shock, visibly trembling. Glancing over at JNPR, Julius saw similar reactions of horror and shock.

The holoboard flickered, and then turned red. _"This, is not a tragedy."_ a feminine voice said over the stadium's speakers. _"This was not an accident."_ she continued to speak. _"This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children, to men who claim to be our guardians, but in reality, are nothing more than men."_ she said, before pausing briefly. _"Our academy headmasters wield more power than most armies, and one was audacious enough to control both. They cling to this power in the name of peace, and yet, what do we have here?"_ she said, referring to Penny's fallen and smashed corpse. _"One nation's attempt at a synthetic army, breaking every single international law regarding artificial intelligence, mercilessly torn apart by another star pupil. What need would Atlas have for a soldier disguised as an innocent little girl, one who seamlessly blended in with her peers?"_

The woman chuckled, although it was barely audible to most of the audience. _"I don't think the Grimm can tell the difference."_ she said, before shifting her tone. _"And what, I ask you, is Ozpin teaching_ _ **his**_ _students? First, a dismemberment, now this? Huntsmen and Huntresses should carry themselves with honor and mercy, yet you have witnessed neither."_

"Bullshit!" Nax yelled, although to little effect, as the voice continued speaking.

" _Perhaps Ozpin thought that defeating Atlas in the tournament would help people forget his colossal failure to protect Vale when the Grimm invaded its streets."_ the woman continued, and slowly, the crowd began to jeer. _"Or, perhaps, this was his message to the tyrannical dictator that has occupied an unsuspecting kingdom with armed forces. Honestly? I haven't the slightest clue who is right and who is wrong, but I know the existence of peace is fragile, and that the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves."_ the woman said, before inhaling calmly. _"As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you the situation there is… equally undesirable. Our kingdoms are at the brink of war, yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark."_

Whatever the woman was using to send the audio to the stadium picked up sound of her moving, and her voice came through again, louder and clearer. _"So I ask you, when the first shots are fired, who do you think you can trust?"_ she finished, and the holoboards flickered again, cutting out.

The crowd began to murmur, and then sirens began to go off. Everyone in the crowd looked around, and then an automated female voice came through. _"Alert, incoming Grimm attack."_ she stated calmly. _"Threat level: nine. Please seek shelter in a calm and orderly manner."_

The crowd immediately panicked, the stands quickly emptying as people ran and screamed for the exits. The speaker system picked up again. It was Ironwood.

" _Ladies and gentlemen, please, there is no need for panic."_ he said, trying to reassure the crowd, right as a Nevermore landed on top of the arena, spread its wings, and screamed, before pecking at the shields of the arena.

"How did a Nevermore get here?!" Sun shouted, shocked.

"How'd it get past the Kingdom's defenses?!" Coco questioned, leaning over the railing.

The Nevermore continued to peck and stomp at the shields, roaring again. Pyrrha finally stood up and stared at Penny's body, shocked at what she had done. "Pyrrha!" Jaune cried, leaning over the railing. "Pyrrha, that thing's going to break in, you've gotta move!" he pleaded, although his cries fell on deaf ears. The Nevermore roared again and flew up in the air. It swooped down, and realizing what was going to happen, Jaune vaulted the railing, landing on the arena platform and going after Pyrrha.

"Jaune!" Nora screeched, reaching her hand over the railing far too late to catch him.

"Motherf-" Nax swore as he punched the railing.

Right as Jaune was within an arm's length of Pyrrha, the Nevermore broke through the shield, shattering it like glass and landing, causing Pyrrha and Jaune to fly backwards. Lifting itself up, it spread its wings and roared, before charging Pyrrha. It would have trampled her, too, had a red blur not impacted the Nevermore and knocked it back towards the edge of the arena. That same blur then flew backwards and landed in front of Pyrrha.

It was Ruby, holding one of Penny's swords. "Leave her alone!" she screamed, readying the sword for another strike. The Nevermore reared up, roared, and flew into the air, circling the arena several times before coming down, its sights set on killing Ruby. It screeched again, and suddenly silver flashes clipped its wings, sending it crashing down to the arena floor, before more blurs penetrated its body, pinning it to the arena floor. As if for good measure, one last blur hit it in the head, eviscerating its skull.

The dust finally settled, and everyone quickly realized that the blurs were actually weapon drop pods. All of the teams jumped into the arena to grab their weapons. Nax cradled his small armory like his babies, especially his revolver, Aqui grabbed Horizon and Eclipse from their cases, gave them a quick once over, and tossed fresh magazines into them. Julius pulled Thunderstick, as well as his chest rig, out from the pod, quickly throwing the rig on and putting fresh magazines into the pouches. Marshall grabbed his assault pack from the pod and loaded it up with as many boxes of ammunition for Ripper as he could, plus a tank shell. Izzy simply grabbed her bow and her quiver, licking one of the arrows to intentionally draw a little bit of blood. "…I love a good hunt." she commented sadistically to herself as Ruby and Nax gave her strange looks.

The group's attention turned to Pyrrha who was on her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. "…Ruby, I…" she said, her voice shaky and unclear, before glancing back down at a piece of cloth from Penny's dress. "…I'm so sorry."

Ruby considered her words, and then glanced down at the ground. "…Me too." she said, sounding dejected. "But it wasn't your fault."

"She's right." Jaune suddenly said, approaching Pyrrha with her sword and shield. "Whoever was on the microphone – they're the ones that did this." Jaune continued, before handing Pyrrha her weapons. "And we have to make sure that they don't take anyone else."

Pyrrha and Jaune glanced back at the teams, all of them more or less standing in a line. Before anyone could speak a word, there were smaller roars coming from higher up in the arena. Everyone looked up and saw several Griffons peering down into the arena from the top.

"Anyone got a plan?" Neptune asked, switching targets but not firing.

"Sun," Ruby said, glancing to the monkey Faunus. "I need your scroll." she asked, and Sun tossed his scroll to her. She opened it, and her own pod came crashing down next to her, opening to reveal Crescent Rose. She went to go grab it, but a Griffon landed on it, roaring at her and preventing Ruby from getting her weapon. Suddenly, a bullet hit it in the side and the Griffon fell over, dead.

All eyes turned to the source of the shot; Port and Oobleck. Lowering his blunderbuss, Port glanced at the crowd. "Students – I think it would be best for you to leave." he said in a stern manner.

"But we can he-" Ruby protested, before being cut off.

"Miss Rose!" Oobleck interjected. "This day will surely go down in Remnant's history. I'd prefer if my students could live to tell about it." he finished, sounding more like a cautionary parent than a teacher. Oobleck glanced at Nax. "This goes double for you, Nax."

Ruby hesitated, and then nodded, grabbing Crescent Rose from its pod and twirling it, impacting it in the ground. "Let's go!" she shouted, and then the group of Huntsmen and Huntresses ran for the exit.

"Don't need to tell me twice!" Julius said as he lead the pack.

"Last one alive, lock the door!" Marshall shouted, maintaining a decent pace even with the weight of his gear.

It barely took two minutes for the group to arrive at the evac platforms, coming face to face with Ironwood. "What's going on?!" Ruby cried in fear as they came to a halt.

"Grimm are crawling all over the city, the White Fang's invaded Beacon, and to make matters worse, some… vagabond has seized one of my ships." Ironwood said, glancing back over the horizon, before facing the crowd again. "Until we regain command, the skies are out of our hands. So I'm…" Ironwood paused, drawing his pistol and shooting a Beowulf that was trying to sneak up on the group. "…going to take it back." he finished, walking up the ramp to his transport.

"…What should we do?" Jaune questioned.

Ironwood turned back to face the group. "You have two choices – either defend your kingdom and your schools…" Ironwood answered. "…or save yourselves." he said grimly. "No one will fault you if you leave."

With that, Ironwood turned back up the ramp, and it shut behind him as the transport took off.

"We can take a transport ship to Beacon!" Sun suggested, before running off, and the group quickly followed him, leaving Ruby behind, albeit briefly.

* * *

The group was situated in the cramped quarters of the Air Bus, heading back to Beacon. Most everyone was silent, not saying a word. A lot had transpired in just around twenty minutes, and it was a lot to take in. Their lives were falling apart around them, and all they could do was sit there and watch, slowly drifting towards Beacon.

Julius stood near the front of the Air Bus, watching the destruction of Vale unfold. Large pillars of fire and smoke had broken out at various points around the city, and there were intermittent explosions, usually signaled with bright flashes across the ashen horizon. Julius slowly ran his hand down the window, stonefaced. Aqui got up from her seat and stood behind Julius, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Jules, maybe you should sit down." Aqui suggested in a gentle, comforting tone.

Julius simply crossed his arms. "No, Aqui, I shouldn't." he said, and Aqui's expression demanded an explanation from Julius. "Aqui, now more than ever, I need to be on guard."

"But-" Aqui protested to little impact.

"No buts, Aqui." Julius shot back to her. "You saw what happened in the arena. We all did. Everyone in the whole damn world knows it. I don't want something like that happening again, Aqui, especially to you." he said, quietly choking up. Beneath his sunglasses Aqui got a glimpse of his eyes. They looked bloodshot and tired.

Nax sat up in his seat, lazily looking over to Julius. "Julius, I've lived long enough to know that nobody alone can stop all evil in the world. You can't protect everyone all day, every day, around the clock." he said, and most of the people in the Air Bus looked over at him. "We're only human, after all. Things slip through or catch you off-guard." he said, referring to how Khagan had eluded him and continued to harass New Vegas years after Frosthill.

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by Ruby. "Look!" she shouted, pointing out the left windows. Everyone turned their attention to where she was pointing and saw a familiar transport descending downwards.

"Isn't that Ironwood's?" Marshall asked out loud as the transport suddenly exploded. "…My god." he murmured quietly.

Everyone stared at the downed transport in silence. Yet another loss to add to the casualty list.

Ruby trembled and clenched her fists, before running out back. "Ruby! What're you doing?!" Sun shouted after her.

"Finishing what he started!" Ruby shouted back as the door shut behind her.

"…I'm going with her." Julius said, before darting after Ruby.

"Julius!" Aqui shouted, too slow to catch her friend.

Julius quickly ran through the Air Bus and jumped off the back loading bay, catching a glimpse of Ruby mid-air. He quickly landed and was greeted with a surprised Ruby staring at him. "I'm not letting you do this alone, Ruby." he said, looking over at the Atlesian Battlecruiser. "That thing's huge, at least a two person job, even if we're Huntsmen in training."

Ruby looked at him, worried, and then nodded. "Right." she said quietly, before shifting her gaze back to the Air Bus. Julius turned to see what she was looking at, and at the edge of the loading bay was Aqui, her hair flowing in the wind, staring right at Julius.

Julius cupped his hands around his mouth and inhaled. "I'll be back at Beacon with you soon, Aqui!" he yelled after her. Aqui didn't bother with a verbal response, and instead just stood there as the Air Bus slowly drifted away from the stadium, before slowly walking back inside. Julius turned back to Ruby. "Let's go." he said, and Ruby nodded, leading him back to the arena where the drop pods were.

She ran over to the closest upright pod and input a code on the keypad, before drawing Crescent Rose and wrapping it around the pod. "Grab on, quick!" she shouted to Julius, who ran over and grabbed the end of Crescent Rose. Very soon after, the pod launched in the air towards the Battlecruiser. Ruby's cape kept flying in his face from the high speed, and when he finally managed to move it enough to see, they were already on top of the Battlecruiser.

The pod crashed against the hull of the ship, launching Ruby and Julius from it and clattering against the ship. The two of them quickly stood up, struggling against the wind. "Ruby!" Julius shouted. "You get in through this end. I'll go further up and clear it out!"

"Gotcha!" Ruby shouted as she spotted a maintenance hatch and pried it open with Crescent Rose, dropping into it.

"And keep your comms open, Ruby!" Julius shouted after her, although she probably couldn't hear him now.

Julius turned and looked ahead, slowly beginning his march towards the bridge.

* * *

 _Thud. Thud. Thud._

Roman heard two clicks come from his earpiece. Neo had engaged the intruder, then. That was good, but that also begged the question of just who was on the outside of the Battlecruiser.

 _Thud. Thud. Thud._

"Now, who could that be?" Roman wondered out loud, pushing his hat up with the bottom of Melodic Cudgel. He spotted an emergency exit hatch in the bridge ceiling and promptly pried it open, climbing out and exposing himself to the harsh winds outside. His eyes quickly adjusting, he saw the source of the noise.

"Oh, it's you." Roman said, sounding rather annoyed. It wasn't Red, whom he had been expecting, but rather it was the brat from the docks. "Come to take my other hand, have you?" Roman taunted, gesturing with his new prosthetic hand. "Or maybe my other eye, like that sand-dwelling degenerate you like to associate with did?" he continued, aiming Melodic Cudgel at the kid.

The brat, however, simply started laughing. Hesitantly aiming Melodic Cudgel down at the hull, Roman raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny, brat?" he asked, and that only caused him to laugh harder. Re-snapping Melodic Cudgel's sights to the kid, Roman glared. "Answer me!"

The kid finally calmed down and knelt over, wiping tears from his eyes. "Oh, Roman," he said in a mocking voice. "I'm not here to take your hand, or your eye, or even your legs." he said, staring down at the hull, before his head shot to Roman, eyes glowing red with anger and hate, even through his sunglasses and the dark of the night, piercing right through Roman's soul. "I'm here for your life." he said hatefully, launching forward at such a breakneck speed that by the time Roman shot Melodic Cudgel at him, he had already closed the distance by half.

The kid's rifle split into two large blades, and seemingly with little effort, he split the grenade in half, creating two smaller explosions behind him that sent shrapnel into the hull. The kid, however, instead of continuing his mad dash for Roman, began to menacingly march at Roman, easily deflecting the multiple grenades Roman shot his way. With each step he took, the hull of the Battlecruiser buckled, as if it were bending to his rage. The kid then set one of his blades on his belt, and Roman shot another grenade at him. This time, instead of deflecting it away or cutting it in half, he simply _caught_ the grenade mid-flight. Shocked, Roman watched as the kid examined the grenade slowly, seemingly unconcerned with the possibility of it being on a timer. He threw the grenade in the air, grabbed it, and then threw it at Roman, hitting him in the jaw and knocking him on his back.

Quickly sitting up, Roman rubbed his mouth, and felt liquid running down the corners. _"That little bastard drew blood already? But my Aura isn't even halfway…"_ Roman thought as he looked at the scroll inside his jacket. Instead of fully being green or maybe in the yellow, Roman's Aura was already in the red. _"What?! Impossible!"_ Roman thought, the gravity of his situation setting in. Roman attempted to back away from the kid, only for him to draw his blade and slice at… nothing?

…No, that couldn't be right.

Roman felt something cut into his right leg, severing it from the rest of his body. He screamed in pain and tried to back away faster in futility. The brat swung his sword again, and this time his left arm was cut. Fighting through the pain, Roman swung Melodic Cudgel at the kid's head, only for him to effortlessly catch it in an iron grip. The brat took one look at Melodic Cudgel, and broke it in half, tossing his end over the side of the ship. Kicking Roman's end out of his hand, the kid simply approached Roman and picked him up by his jacket, putting the two at eye level.

"Do you know who I am?" Julius asked, hatred and rage burning with every word he spoke.

Roman grunted in pain, before smirking. "I haven't the faintest clue. I've met countless brats like you who all hate me for one reason or another." he taunted, struggling against Julius' grip. "What makes you think you're any different?"

Julius drew his machete and stabbed Roman in the gut with it, twisting it. "…I'm the one who'll end you." he said, no emotion other than malicious anger in his voice.

Roman yelled in pain as his organs were twisted and cut by the blade. "Motherf-!" he shouted, struggling against Julius' grip. "…Look, kid, I don't know what I did to piss you off, but maybe a couple thousand Lien will get you to spare me…?" Roman offered, reaching into his jacket and producing several Lien cards. "I'm a very powerful person, you see…"

Looking at the bribe with disdain, Julius took the cards, before throwing them to the wind.

Julius then took his sunglasses off, and Roman looked like he had seen a ghost. "Y-you…" he stammered. "You're that shitbird kid from Moonvale, the one that hid in his closet and watched his parents die!" Roman shouted as Julius drove the blade further.

"Correct. I don't care what you have to gain or lose, or what you want out of destroying Vale. All I want is _**revenge.**_ " Julius said coldly as he turned the blade to Roman's sides. "…As one of the last surviving residents of Moonvale, and the de facto sheriff, I hereby sentence you, Roman Torchwick, to death for crimes against our community."

With that Julius, cut clean through Roman's body, exposing his internal organs to the wind. Immediately, they began to spill out, and Roman screamed as loud as he possibly could. Julius dropped him on the hull and readied his blade over Roman's neck. "Rot in hell, you piece of shit." he said coldly and hatefully, dropping his machete down on Roman, decapitating him.

Breathing heavily, the sight took quite a while to set in for Julius. Roman Torchwick, the man he had hated for years, was now in front of him, his damaged body barely recognizable, and his rolling head locked in an expression of fear. All of those feelings of hate and anger and rage were now dissipating, being replaced by… nothing. Julius felt only emptiness and loneliness now that his lifelong goal had finally been achieved.

Was it worth it?

Slowly, Julius felt something come in to replace that emptiness.

This time it wasn't an emotion, but rather, an instinct. Julius hungered, yet it wasn't a natural hunger. It was the desire for human flesh. Slowly lifting his blood-soaked hand into the pale moonlight, Julius realized _why_ he suddenly felt this hunger.

His skin was deathly pale, and black patches of fur were beginning to appear on his arm. Small growths of bone were also sprouting, causing significant discomfort to him. He had let his hate and rage for Roman get the better of him, and now, he was paying the price. Catching a glimpse of the emergency exit Roman had used, Julius jumped down and landed in the center of the empty bridge. His condition was already rapidly deteriorating. He didn't have much time.

In front of him was a layout of the Battlecruiser. He was on the bridge, near the nose, and about three decks down in the back was a hangar bay. On the command consoles, code appeared to be running that looked like it controlled the Atlesian forces in Vale. On another separate screen was a video feed of Atlesian forces shooting at civilians, and immediately, Julius understood the significance of this ship. Reaching for his scroll, he opened communications with Ruby. "Ruby!" he said in a more guttural, animalistic voice than how he normally spoke.

" _Julius?_ " her voice crackled through. " _Are you okay? I was fighting someone, but they ran away! Where are you?_ "

Julius coughed up some blood that dissipated on the floor. "No, I'm not fine, Ruby, and I'm on the bridge right now. Listen, I'm gonna destroy the controls and crash the ship. I'm too wounded to get to safety. There's a hangar bay on the bottom deck, get there, grab a Bullhead, and get to Beacon! _**Go!**_ " he commanded, his animalistic and savage voice mixing with his normal one.

" _But-_ " Ruby protested.

"No buts! I can't go on, but don't let my death be in vain, Ruby!" he shouted. There was silence from Ruby's end. Silence gave way to sniffling, and sniffling gave way to tears. "…Ruby, I know I'm not the first person you knew to die today, and I probably won't be the last. But consider this – if you don't get back to Beacon, more people are going to die!"

Ruby sniffled and mumbled something barely audible, before closing the call. About two minutes later, Julius saw a Bullhead fly past the bridge windows, barely flying straight.

* * *

 **Play Blade and Burden from the Halo: Legends soundtrack**

* * *

Drawing Thunderstick with his body almost completely transformed, Julius emptied magazine after magazine into the consoles and computers, until none were functional. The Battlecruiser began to list forward, and various alarms and warning sounds started going off. With all of the consoles destroyed, the video feed showed the Atlesian forces shutting down for good. To make sure they couldn't ever be repaired, Julius grabbed two grenades from his damaged plate carrier, pulled the pins on them both, and tossed them into the left and right sides of the bridge, taking cover behind the rear command console. They went off, creating more warnings and alarms, although Julius paid them no mind, slumping against the console. He then pulled his third and final grenade out, staring at it apathetically. The beast inside him was fighting to prevent him from pulling the pin – his clawed hands struggling to get the pin out. Slowly, he managed to remove the pin and push the safety lever off, and the grenade began to tick down, time seeming to slow with it.

Clutching the grenade close to his chest, tears began to flow as Julius' life flashed before his eyes. His early childhood, the attack on Moonvale, the trek to Vale, being a delinquent in Vale and getting in trouble with the cops nearly weekly, meeting Marshall and Izzy for the first time, beating the hell out of Harrier, meeting Nax, the entire school year went by in a blur, barely visible to him comprehensibly. The visions finally ended on Aqui, smiling at him warmly. He wouldn't be able to explain it, but the sight put him at ease, even if it was his dying brain hallucinating.

"…Goodbye." Julius choked out as the grenade went off.

* * *

 **That's another segment done. I don't remember when I initially planned for Julius to bite the bullet, but it must have been super early, probably around chapter 5? As I thought on it more after that point, I decided that this was how he was going to go out; by cucking the Nevermore from its dinner.**

 **I originally had a whole segment here explaining what happened to Julius, but I think I'll just let the segment way below here do the talking for me.**

 **Anyways, next segment is at Beacon during the attack.**

* * *

Six watched as the Paladin bullrushed towards the crowd, powerless to stop it. Coco spun her minigun up, but as if God himself intervened in that very moment, the Paladin short-circuited and dropped to the ground, sliding down the main path to Beacon, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and stopping just inches from the front of the crowd. Sun kicked the mech dismissively. "Well, that went better than expected." he commented dryly.

" _I was halfway done hacking it, jackass."_ Allie snidely commented out loud, causing Sun to look behind his back, thinking he had heard someone.

"Weiss!" Yang shouted, running out from behind several large bushes. "You're okay! Have you heard from Ruby?!" she said in a panic.

Weiss was using her rapier as a support, dreadfully out of breath. She put her finger up to signal that she needed a moment, swallowed, and then looked up at Yang. "…No, I… hah, haven't." she said, still gasping for air.

"Ruby jumped out of the Air Bus we came in on, and Julius went after her." Six answered, and Yang's eyes immediately fell on Six.

Running up, Yang picked Six up by his duster, shaking him angrily. "And you let her go?!" she shouted, her violet eyes turning red and her hair starting to glow. "Where is she now?!"

Calmly putting his hands over Yang's wrists, Six frowned behind his mask. "She was too fast for anyone to catch. As for where she is…" Six said, slowly looking in the general direction of the arena. "I'd imagine she's on Ironwood's Battlecruiser right now."

Weiss suddenly realized something. "…Wait, his Battlecruiser?!" she said, and the significance of this was lost on everyone. Weiss realized this, and pointed at the downed Paladin. "Ironwood's Battlecruiser controls the Atlesian forces in its operational zone. Basic Atlesian battle doctrine."

"…Like a control ship?" Six asked, and Weiss nodded.

"Like a control ship. The majority of Atlas' forces are androids, and those androids can't think independently from the mothership." Weiss elaborated.

"…So when that link is severed on the mothership's end…" Marshall said, slowly putting the pieces together.

"The Atlas forces shut down." Weiss finished. "Something's happened to Ironwood's Battlecruiser, and we can only hope Ruby got away safely."

Yang slowly set Six back on his feet. "What about Blake? Have any of you seen her?"

Weiss coughed heavily. "Last I saw her, she was fighting an Alpha near the cafeteria." she said, pointing to the left. "…and some guys from the White Fang."

Yang turned on a heel towards the cafeteria. "Then I'm going after Blake." she said resolutely as Six put a hand on her shoulder, catching her attention.

"I'm coming with you." he said, and Yang smirked.

"Try and keep up." she teased, before running off, with Six tailing her.

Marshall was about to ask what they were going to do next, but before he could speak, they all heard screams coming from the right. There was a small crowd of civilians running away, with Atlesian soldiers following them, only stopping to turn and get a few shots off at a pack of Beowolves chasing them.

"Hey, you!" one of the soldiers shouted to them. "Help us get these civvies to the evac point! Hurry!" he shouted, stopping, and promptly being pounced by a Beowolf, which was quickly killed by Izzy's arrow.

* * *

As Yang and Six approached the burning cafeteria, they heard shouting inside. "This could have been our day!" a man yelled angrily at someone.

That someone turned out to be Blake. "I never wanted this!" she cried out. "I wanted equality!" she shouted again, audibly pulling the slide back on her gun. "I wanted peace!"

Yang and Six exchanged glances and readied their shotguns as the two of them continued their exchange. Blake fired two shots, which sounded like they ricocheted off of something metal. "What you want is impossible!" the man yelled back as Six and Yang slowly crept closer to get a good look at the scene. Blake was on her knees, practically at the mercy of this psychopath. He then proceeded to backhand her, and Blake meekly fell to the ground. "But I understand," he said, approaching her "…because all I want, is you, Blake." he said, with Blake raising her weapon to shoot at him, only for it to be kicked out of her hands. "…And as I set out upon this world to deliver the _**justice**_ that mankind so rightly deserves, I will make it my _**mission**_ to destroy everything you love."

Six rolled his eyes behind his helmet. "Give me a break." he said dryly, before getting Yang's attention. "I'm gonna get his attention, hit him from behind when he least expects it." he ordered, getting up and slowly walking into the cafeteria.

"Nax!" Yang hissed out in protest, but Six ignored her.

"Hey, jackass!" Six shouted out to get his attention. "Being sexually frustrated over a girl turning your dumb ass down doesn't give you the right to hit her like that!" he taunted, Ithaca in one hand, with the other resting on the heat shield.

The man sheathed his sword and turned to look at Six. "…And just who might you be?" he asked, visibly agitated with Six's taunting. "Blake's knight in shining armor?"

Six pointed to himself with his thumb. "…Me?" he asked, as if to ridicule the man's intelligence. "I'm just the mailman."

The man scoffed. "Ridiculous. Fools like you should know their place." he said, his agitation only increasing the more Six taunted him.

Blake coughed out some blood on the floor, and her eyes widened at Six. "Nax, get out of here! Adam is too-!" she yelled, trying to warn him, only to be kicked in the face.

"Silence!" Adam hissed at her, before returning his focus to Six. "…Nax Strag is your name?"

Six snorted. "Yeah. Doesn't sound as cool when an edgelord says it." he taunted again, and Adam gave the slightest hint of a frown.

Slowly unsheathing his sword, Adam pointed its tip at Six. "I know you aren't who you say you are, Strag."

"So?" Six replied. "Get over it."

Adam calmly exhaled. "Are you sure that's the wisest thing to say, _Courier Six_?" Adam taunted, and Six's heart skipped several beats. "…I wonder what your _illegal_ AI has to say about this?"

Readying himself for a fight, Six dug his heels in. "If you'd be so kind as to surrender that AI of yours, I'll be sure to make your death painless." he said, before glancing at Blake. "More than I can say for Blake here."

Six's expression turned to one of silent, brewing resentment. Whoever this asshole was, he knew who he was. "You'll get Allie once you pry her from my cold, dead hands." Six replied, anger beginning to drip from his words.

Adam rolled his eyes, or at least it looked like. "So be it." he said, before rushing towards Six, intent on running him through with his blade. Six stood still, like a deer in headlights. As soon as the blade was within range of Six, he sidestepped with inhuman speed, grabbing Adam by the throat.

"Too slow." Six taunted, before punching Adam in the face with a right hook, causing his mask to crack. Six saw Adam trying to swing at him, and forcibly redirected the punch. "Try harder." he continued, before seeing an opportunity in Adam's horns.

Kneeing Adam in the gut, Six grabbed one of his horns and dug his fingers behind Adam's mask, and pulled as hard as he could. There was a sickening crack, and then both the horn and the mask came loose, blood flying out with them. Adam didn't scream.

Six tossed them both aside, staring Adam in the face. "Man, you're one ugly son of a bitch!" he snarked, referring to the SDC brand over Adam's left eye. The fire and hate in his right eye only intensified. Quickly grabbing the Ithaca, Six shot Adam in the chest.

Instead of having his ribcage torn open, though, Adam caught each and every single pellet with his sword, which was now glowing a bright red. "Look out, Nax!" Six heard Blake yell, but it was too late. The glow quickly intensified, and Nax felt a sharp pain in his left arm. His HUD flared up with warnings of structural integrity being breached as he fell backwards.

" _ **SIX!"**_ he heard Allie screech in pain as time seemed to slow down. Six eventually hit the ground, forced to look at Adam's smug, if agitated face. The sight was familiar to Six somehow, and then it hit him.

This was the vision he had the night after they had found Vegas. Right down to the flames in the background, and his look of disdain.

"I expected more of a fight." he said, pleased with himself, before he kicked Six over, noticing the slot at the base of Six's neck. He slowly reached down to pull its contents out.

" _Six! Get up, please! Now!"_ Allie cried out, and Six struggled to get himself up with his remaining arm, the blood from the stump beginning to pool under him. Adam quickly stomped on his back and forced him to the ground. _"No!"_ Allie cried again as Adam put his fingers into the slot. _"No, no, no, no! Six, save me!"_ Allie screamed in pain, her voice quickly getting more guttural and broken as her chip was slowly removed, and then her voice completely cut out. As soon as it did, Six felt intense pain coursing through every part of his body, not just the stump where his arm used to be.

Adam kicked him over again, forcing him to stare down his shotgun barrel. "So long, Courier Six." he said, and the last thing Six saw before blacking out from the shock was a yellow blur crashing into Adam.

* * *

 **That's sort of it for the Six VS Adam fight, but the segment doesn't end there. I was originally going to have the Ithaca get destroyed and have Six watch a visage of his dad's spirit disappear in front of him, but I can't really think of a way to make that work.**

 **We're now moving to the evac point roughly at the same time as this fight.**

* * *

"Move it, people! Go, go!" an Atlesian soldier shouted to a group of civilians who rushed past the makeshift defenses around the evac point near the cliff. They quickly ran into the open boarding ramp of the Air Bus, which detached from the landing platform and floated off into the distance.

"Just how many of these things are there?!" Aqui shouted, bursting down a group of Beowolves that had been trying to converge on their position. "I feel like I've killed thirty- no, forty of them, but they just keep coming!"

Marshall dropped Ripper on a set of sandbags and mounted it like a turret. "Who cares?!" he said with a sadistic glee. "It's a target rich environment!" he yelled again, before opening up on a small crowd of Ursai. Aqui briefly frowned at his adrenaline rush, before reflexively stabbing a Beowulf through the skull with the blade on Eclipse.

An Atlesian soldier ran up and got their attention. "Air support incoming!" he shouted over the gunfire. "Thirty seconds!"

Marshall and Aqui silently nodded in acknowledgement, and mentally began to count down as they continued firing at the seemingly never-ending horde of Grimm.

Twenty seconds.

Fifteen seconds.

Ten seconds. They could hear the roar of the support craft's engines now.

Five seconds. Everyone ducked behind cover.

Splash.

The entire campus erupted into a mess of Dust explosions, wiping out basically the entire horde. Grimm body parts flew overhead before quickly crumbling into dust, and the heatwave flew over them, briefly making their adrenaline-riddled minds believe they were in the desert.

Once the explosions ended, Aqui glanced over.

The horde was gone, as was most of the field near the cliff. Much of the pathways had been blown apart, and several columns and statues had been knocked over or were simply vaporized in one of the explosions. The destruction was certainly something to behold, yet it also terrified Aqui slightly.

The soldiers immediately regrouped, reinforcing the defenses around the perimeter. "Let's move it people, we've got a breather, so let's make the best of it!" one of them said, presumably a commanding officer.

One of the soldiers that had taken up position next to Aqui relaxed briefly, and tapped someone else on the shoulder. "Hey, Corporal, you hear that?" he said quietly.

"Hear what?" the other soldier responded.

"…Do you hear a Bullhead?" he asked, and the other man went quiet.

Aqui also mentally tuned out the background noise, and slowly, she did begin to pick up on the telltale whine of a Bullhead's engines, approaching fast from behind.

"…Shit, yeah, I hear it." the Corporal replied, before turning back to a soldier who wasn't in cover. "Sergeant Major! Did you call in a second air strike?!" he shouted, and the Sergeant looked over at him in confusion.

"…No?" he responded.

The whine of the engines was practically on top of them now. "Get to cover! NOW!" the Corporal yelled, ducking behind the makeshift fortifications. Everyone else ducked with him, and Aqui saw the Bullhead fly overhead, its pilot barely maintaining control. Two seconds later, and there was a bright flash, quickly accompanied by a loud explosion. Everyone turned their heads back over cover to see that the Bullhead landed in one of the bomb craters, having made a decently sized path when it skidded to a stop. Strangely, there wasn't any real structural damage to the craft aside from what looked like had been incurred from the impact.

Several soldiers cautiously raised their weapons at the Bullhead. The transport door on the side of the Bullhead that faced the evac point buckled outward, before there was a loud gunshot, and it flew off several feet away from its mounting point. Smoke poured from the inside of the craft, and a small figure came out, coughing and hacking.

It was Ruby.

"Ruby!" Aqui shouted, managing to get her attention over the sounds of battle. "Get over here, quick! Before more Grimm show up!" she ordered, and barely visibly nodding in the darkness, Ruby ran up to the evac point, the soldiers lowering their weapons at the sight of her.

She was bloodied, bruised, and visibly exhausted, and she all but collapsed when she got to the fortifications. Aqui prepared her Semblance, and kneeled down to Ruby. "…You're hurt pretty bad, Ruby. Let me fix that for you." she said quietly, moving to hold her hands on Ruby's head.

"…No, wait…" Ruby mumbled out in protest, her eyes shaking, on the verge of tears.

As Aqui's Semblance began to go to work, she also involuntarily collect Ruby's memories. At first, it was mostly shots of Ruby's poor attempts at piloting, but as the memories began to enter the Atlesian Battlecruiser, a familiar voice came through her head.

" _Ruby!"_ a ghostly, faint Julius said, his voice sounding much more gravelly and bestial.

" _Julius?"_ Ruby's voice responded in the memory. " _Are you okay? I was fighting someone, but they ran away! Where are you?_ "

The memory of Julius coughed heavily. _"No, I'm not fine, Ruby, and I'm on the bridge right now. Listen, I'm gonna destroy the controls and crash the ship. I'm too wounded to get to safety. There's a hangar bay on the bottom deck, get there, grab a Bullhead, and get to Beacon!_ _ **Go!**_ _"_

" _But-"_ Ruby protested in the memory.

" _No buts! I can't go on, but don't let my death be in vain, Ruby!"_ Julius shouted, his voice seeming to echo in Aqui's mind. _"…Ruby, I know I'm not the first person you knew to die today, and I probably won't be the last. But consider this – if you don't get back to Beacon, more people are going to die!"_

* * *

 **Play Shattered Legacy from the Halo: Legends soundtrack**

* * *

The memory stopped there, and Aqui was now back in reality, her hands trembling over a now healed Ruby, Semblance crackling and fizzling out around her head.

Ruby understood what Aqui had just seen, and just silently shook her head, tears flowing freely now. "…I'm sorry, Aqui." she said, before pulling Aqui into a hug. "I'm so, so, so sorry." Ruby whimpered out.

Even when Ruby moved from where Aqui's hands were, she simply sat there, frozen like a statue, unmoving. Her expression was locked in a permanent expression of guilt and grief, tears already leaving their marks on her face.

Marshall and Izzy had already noticed Aqui's silence. "…Something wrong, Aqui?" Izzy asked out of concern, kneeling down next to her.

Aqui didn't shift her gaze to look at Izzy. She only continued staring straight ahead. "…Julius is dead…" she mumbled out, her voice cracking. Even though she said it herself, she still couldn't believe it, and neither could her teammates. "…I saw it myself. He's dead." she said, her voice broken and defeated.

Aqui finally moved, letting her head fall into Ruby's shoulder, not even bothering to hold her crying in. Marshall and Izzy put their hands on her shoulder to try and comfort her. "…I can't believe it." Aqui sobbed into Ruby's cape. "He's really dead…" she wept, holding onto Ruby for comfort.

In-between their attempts at comforting Aqui, Marshall and Izzy would occasionally glance up at CRDL, who had been intermittently looking at the scene, all of them conflicted. Aqui eventually pulled herself off of Ruby and stood up, turning to Izzy and Marshall. "…I'm getting you guys out of here." she said, sounding a bit recovered mentally as she wiped her tears from her eyes, red from crying so much. "…but first, we need to get Nax out."

Marshall and Izzy nodded in unison. "Lead the way, Aqui." Marshall said, and the three of them started for the cafeteria.

* * *

The three of them moved low under the broken windows of the cafeteria, before holding position near a knocked down wall. Aqui glanced over the window seal and quickly took in the sight.

Six was lying on the ground, not moving. There was someone in a black overcoat with red hair walking away from him, blade drawn, and towards Blake and Yang. Yang was unconscious, missing her right arm, which was several feet away. Blood was slowly pooling around her dismembered arm, as well as directly below the stump where it used to be. Blake had a large gash going down the side of her face, and she was staring angrily at the man in the overcoat.

He poised to strike Blake down, and that's when Aqui made the call.

"Now!" she shouted, vaulting over the window, guns blazing at the man's direction as she made a dash for Six's body. The man had a faster reaction, though, and drew a shotgun, blasting Aqui at mid-range, smashing right through her Aura and severely injuring her in just one shot. He then turned his attention to Marshall. Launching himself in the air, the man readied his sword, and in one clean blow, cut through Marshall, cutting him in half.

Ripper broke apart, its internal belt-feeding system jamming up before spewing the belts out, bullets spilling all over the floor. Marshall's legs buckled, before falling forward, his torso falling back. Marshall didn't make any sounds except for the thud against the tile – he had already passed out from the shock and blood loss.

"Marsh!" Izzy yelled, transforming her bow into a staff and launching herself at the man. She implanted it in the ground vertically, swinging around once before kicking him in the face. Izzy then launched herself again, transforming the staff into a bow, falling towards the man. With one swift move, she grabbed an arrow from her quiver and drew the bow back. Right as she was about to release the arrow into his neck, something stabbed through her, stopping her midair.

Suddenly short of breath, Izzy looked down to see that she had been impaled on his sword. He pulled her close, and frowned at her. "…It's a shame you chose to delude yourself into thinking you could be equals with humans." he said, noting Izzy's eyes and scales.

She glared right back at him, spitting poison in his face. "Go to hell, murderer!" Izzy yelled in defiance, spitting poison in his face, which, admittedly, was a futile gesture. The man simply wiped the poison off, frowned, and drew his shotgun, pushing the barrel into Izzy's chest, before pulling the trigger. Izzy jolted back from the impact, before slumping forward, and the man pushed her off of the blade effortlessly, turning back to face Blake and Yang.

"And now, Blake…" he said menacingly. "…You will die." he finished hatefully, decapitating Blake. Her head flew off, shocked, before it started to turn black, and then it disappeared. He heard footsteps behind him, and turned to catch a glimpse of Blake running away with her friend. "…Running won't save you, my love." he mumbled quietly.

Before he could do anything else, Adam was knocked off his feet by a heavy impact from behind, and sent flying. Quickly regaining his bearings, he landed on his feet, locking eyes with his attackers. Four men, all of them around five foot eight, except one who was about six foot five, clad in plate armor, were staring him down. "More meat for the grinder, I see!" Adam shouted to them, tauntingly.

"Like hell we are!" the tallest one said, keeping his mace rested over his shoulder. "Sky, Russel, Dove!" he shouted to the shorter men, and they stood at attention. "Get Nax, Aqui, Izzy and Marshall outta here." he commanded.

"Cardin, did I just hear you right?" Dove asked, questioning his leader's orders.

Cardin shot him a glance. "Did I stutter, Dove?"

Sky crossed his arms. "Cardin, these are the people who put Harrier under, are you serious?"

Cardin glared at Sky, shooting fear into his heart. "Who gives a shit about Harrier? He only held us back. We're our own group now, and what I say goes, and I say get them to safety." he said, the slightest hint of a threat coming from his voice. His three underlings exchanged glances, shrugged, and grabbed the four bodies, hauling them out of the cafeteria. Cardin then turned his attention to Adam. "So," he said, readying his mace. "You're a member of the White Fang, right?"

Adam readied his blade in response. "Congratulations." he said mockingly. "Would you like a prize?"

Cardin ignored what Adam said. "…You know, I used to think all Faunus were shitstains, like the Fang." he said, leaning on his mace like a cane.

"Then you're no different from any other human."

Cardin smirked. "That may have been true a few months ago, but now I think I've realized that Faunus aren't bad." he said, before throwing his mace back over his shoulder. "Just the Fang." Cardin said, and in response, Adam growled, readying his blade. Making a 'come at me' gesture, Cardin readied himself. "Give it your best shot, psycho."

Adam growled again, charging forward at Cardin.

* * *

 **Play Never Be Mine from the Battle Tendency OST**

* * *

Aqui faded in and out of consciousness, feeling her feet dragging against the pavement. In the few brief glimpses she could catch when her eyes opened, she saw the evacuation point gradually getting closer. Struggling to lift her head to see who was carrying her to safety, she could only catch a glimpse of his plate armor and dirty blonde hair. Shouts and commands and gunfire all seemed to blend in for her. She felt her body change hands, briefly be moved around, and then be laid onto something soft.

Managing to keep her eyes open long enough, Aqui tilted her head to see that she was inside of a Bullhead, with Atlesian doctors tending to patients to the best of their abilities. One of them was currently tending to her wounds, hooking her up to an IV drip. She noticed Aqui was awake, and gave her a reassuring smile, before moving to the next patient further in the Bullhead. Still staring at the other end of the Bullhead, several doctors were crowded around one patient's bed, tending to their wounds. They must have finished, as they all moved on to other patients, and Aqui finally got a good luck at the guy.

It was Six, barely breathing. Aqui reached out with her Semblance to feel him out.

It wasn't looking good. He'd lost a lot of blood, and knowing how many cybernetics he had that could cause problems, Aqui had to make a choice.

Sitting up, Aqui got out of her bed and began to limp over to Six's bed, ripping the IV drip off. Several doctors tried to stop her from getting over to him. "Ma'am, please!" one doctor protested, "You're heavily inured, you can't be moving around like this!"

"Shut up!" Aqui shouted back, pushing the doctor away as she continued her march. Blood began to pour from her wounds, but Aqui ignored it. Finally getting to Six's bed, Aqui prepared her Semblance. Putting her hand over his heart and head, she began to heal him. Exhaustion slowly took her over for over-exerting herself, but Aqui didn't care. She, and the rest of JAMI, were at the end of the line. Six, on the other hand, had far more important things to do. Color began to drain from Aqui, both in her eyesight, and her appearance. Her legs began to buckle, bringing her to her knees. As she continued healing, Aqui eventually lacked the strength to support her own weight, falling over by Six's bed, interrupting the healing process.

She struggled to reach out to Six with her Semblance, and, satisfied with her work, closed her eyes one last time, a smile on her face.

* * *

 **That pretty much ends everything regarding the Battle of Beacon. Earlier, I mentioned the Cardin redemption arc/subplot/what-have-you, and this was always the intended end result of that – Cardin sacrificing himself in a fight against Adam so that the rest of CRDL could get Six, Aqui, Julius, and Izzy to safety.**

 **Which, speaking of – JAMI were always intended to die. I don't remember what made me dead-set on killing them, but I feel it had something to do with what was going to happen after the Battle of Beacon regarding the Cult. Something to do with having way too many characters to keep track of, and it being in my writing style to kill off a group of main characters who had basically served their purpose, rather than to keep them around to bloat the story up.**

 **That said, for Aqui's death theme, I almost went with Parting Regrets from the Phantom Blood OST, which was Jonathan's death track, but I actually instead went with Never Be Mine from Battle Tendency since Aqui's death was somewhat similar to Caesar's final Hamon.**

 **And no, that wasn't an intentional Jojo reference at first, I had thought about that scene** _ **long**_ **before I started watching Jojo. I just retroactively went "fuck it" and threw that in because I legit forgot what the song was originally supposed to be.**

 **Yes, I know the times are way out of whack, bite me.**

 **Allie was also always intended to be taken from Six – her capture was basically what was to serve as the driving force for Six's goals during the second 'act' of Grimm Retreat. The first act was all the regular RWBY shit up until the Battle of Beacon, the second act was to be a more or less original story, and the third act was the finale, naturally.**

 **In addition, after the Battle of Beacon, Salem was to reward Cinder with Beacon as her own sort of castle, similar to how Salem has hers. I have nothing written down for how this exchange would go, but it happens.**

 **Anyways, that's enough behind the scenes stuff – we now move to Shade about a week after Beacon's fall, roughly around the time Ruby wakes up.**

* * *

Six felt something unusually soft under his head, as well as a minor stinging around his left elbow. Struggling to open his eyes, he could hear the sound of fluorescent lights. Finally managing to lift his eyelids for more than a few seconds, he finally got a bearing on his surroundings.

He was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV drip on his right. His armor was lying in a chair in the corner, but it was missing its left arm from the elbow down. It looked like it had been cut off, but what could have possibly cut through the armor so easily?

…Wait.

Slowly raising his left arm out from under the covers, Six braced himself for the reality that was going to be staring him in the face like a rabid dog.

Stopping almost halfway, Six closed his eyes and breathed in, pulling his arm out and opening his eyes again.

"…Fucker." Six said disdainfully, staring at the stump where his forearm _should_ have been, as it all came back to him. Beacon and Vale were under attack, hell, they could still _be_ under attack. His fight with that White Fang freak was what cost him his arm, too, and…

Six's eyes widened and his mouth briefly hanged open as an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss hit him like a sandstorm. "…Allie, no…" he said mournfully, hitting his head against the headboard of the bed. Sighing in disgust with himself, he moved his legs around under the covers. They were a bit stiff, but they hadn't completely atrophied. Scooting over towards the IV drip, he got out of bed and grabbed on, dragging it with him towards the window. Suffering through the pain of moving, Six came to rest near the window seal. Outside his hospital window was a vast city surrounded by miles and miles of desert. It almost looked a bit like the old pictures and photos of Cairo in books that his dad would buy from the Followers whenever they came by. Although, thinking twice about it, the city actually looked a bit more like Arroyo, but it wasn't nearly as green.

…Had this all been a really bad drug trip? Did he really hallucinate the past several months, only to somehow end up in Arroyo? That would certainly be nice, but…

"…You're finally awake." a feminine voice said behind him, and Six turned to see who it was. It wasn't a nurse. Rather, it was a tall woman, about six foot, with dusky amber eyes, a smooth, clean face, and short, cream colored hair. For her clothes, she had some sort of black, rubberized sneaking suit on with prominent abdominal muscles. Something about her was intensely familiar to Six, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

And then she flickered.

Six raised a finger at the woman. "You…" he said quietly. "You're Vex, aren't you?"

The woman held her hand out, examining it and flexing each digit individually. She then repeated it with her other hand, before closing both hands into fists and pumping them back. "Back from the dead and reporting for duty." she said confidently, giving Six a serious look. "I feel the same as I did when I was still at Big Mountain, but the hardware you have," she said, pointing to his damaged suit. "…sure does make me feel stronger."

Six leaned up against the seal. "…But you're supposed to be dead, destroyed, decommissioned, whatever. I _saw_ you die in a recording."

Vex put her hand on her hip, visibly appraising Six's sorry state. "Turns out, being dead's not all it's cracked up to be." she quipped, before relaxing. "Jokes aside – I never _died_ in the first place."

"…Huh?" Six said, confused.

Vex pointed to his suit of armor. "When they 'decommissioned' me, they actually just locked me out of functioning. I was hardwired to the stealth suit you have there permanently."

"…But Allie was tied to the stealth suit?"

Vex floated up towards the ceiling lazily, continuing to eye Six. "That's both right and wrong. She was tied to it by way of a datachip. I, on the other hand, _was_ the stealth suit." she went on, forcing a yo-yo to materialize before toying with it. "Thing is, for budget reasons, Allie was built on top of my prototype, so we ended up sharing our body."

Six raised his hand up to put a hold on the conversation. "Hang on a second," he said suddenly. "If you were inactive all this time – how do you know all this stuff?"

Pausing to consider his question, Vex held her hand out, and a hologram of various snippets of footage were left behind, dating as far back as 2076. "Allie left me a lot of footage to work with. Been watching through it all since you got here." Vex said, spinning forward a few years to 2080, stopping on several clips, before hesitantly moving forward. "Speaking of," Vex continued speaking, "She left you a message in case something happened to her."

Vex disappeared in an orange flash of particles, replaced by a flickering Allie. Instinctively, Six reached out to grab her, but retracted it, realizing it was just a recording, as she didn't react to him. "Hello, Six." the recording said. "If you're hearing this – something's happened to me." she continued, frowning. "I'm still alive, at least for now. Someone's taken me, who and where to, I don't know, but..."

The recording wiped some tears from her face, sniffling. "…God, I'm really not good with this kind of thing. I really hope you don't have to see this, but on the off chance that you do…" Allie continued, sighing. "Promise me that you'll save me, Six."

The recording disappeared in a flash again, and Six clenched his fist. "…I will, Allie." he growled, turning back to look out the window again. This wasn't some hallucination from a bad trip, no, this was reality. He was still in Remnant, and he really _did_ lose Allie. If he had to guess, this was probably Vacuo, or maybe Menagerie, but that was unlikely.

He heard the door creak open, and turned to see four hooded figures staring at him. They quickly pulled their hoods down, revealing a dark woman with reptilian eyes and light blonde hair, two wolf Faunus, one with grey fur, and the other black, and an older looking man who seemed to be a war veteran of sorts, probably in his fifties. "H-Holy Arbiter!" they said in unison, kneeling down and bowing their heads.

"Forgive us for seeing you in such a state, Holy Arbiter!" the woman said humbly, keeping her eyes glued to the floor.

The war veteran of the group remained calm. "Holy Arbiter, please forgive our intrusion. We were simply sent here by the rest of the Order to keep watch over you." he explained, keeping his cool.

"You're forgiven." Six replied, flinching at a phantom pain in his severed arm. "Rise."

Right, the Cult. He was in control of them now, wasn't he?

They would certainly be useful in getting Allie back. Although, that more hinged on how much they had fixed New Vegas up.

The four Custodia rose to their feet, but kept their heads bowed politely. "Holy Arbiter, when we found you here, we feared the worst. To see your body in such a state…" the black-furred Faunus said tearfully. "…Who could do something like this to you, Arbiter?"

Six sighed, glancing at the torn off arm on his suit. "…Someone I underestimated. He stole Allie, and nearly killed me." he said, before looking out the window. "To be honest, I don't even know why I'm alive."

Turning his head back to the Custodia, Six eyed down the grey-furred Faunus. "…What happened to team JAMI? Are Aqui, Marshall, and Izzy alright?"

The Faunus swallowed. "…Marshall Adrin was bisected and bled out on the flight to Shade. Izzy Ferizini was impaled through her heart, and Aqui Blueheart…" the Faunus explained, before closing his eyes. "…From what we know, Aqui used her Semblance to channel the remainder of her Aura into you to save your life. She sacrificed herself for you, Arbiter."

Six's expression turned dour. "…I see." he said, emotion stripped from his voice. "…Bring one of the doctors in here so I can talk with them. Once I'm released, take me to New Vegas."

The Custodia bowed their heads. "Yes, Arbiter." they said in unison, before walking out.

Six turned his attention back to the sprawling dunes of Vacuo. "…Wherever you are, Allie, I'm coming for you, and I'm gonna make sure there's nothing left to bury of the ones who took you from me…" he murmured angrily. "…I promise."

* * *

 **There we go for that sequence. Since Allie was going to be taken from Six eventually, I had a good think about who to replace her with. I briefly entertained the idea of using the Custodia to fill in for her, but that would have brought me back to the problem I had with team JAMI in that it would be way too many characters to keep track of, so I chose to have Vex fill in for Allie. I don't really have too much written for their interactions (both between Vex and Six, but also with Allie) but she would have been more like a big sister/tomboy type, compared to how Allie was.**

 **Moving on, this was the start of the second act, which would have followed Six using everything New Vegas (and Big Mountain) had to establish himself and the cult as the dominant power in Vacuo. They would have used repaired and enlarged versions of the Sierra Madre vending machines (which would have been called Nanoforges) to pump out a fuckhuge army of Saturnite armored Securitrons designed specifically to counter the threats of Remnant. They'd mostly have been fighting off bandits, the White Fang cell in Vacuo, and a rogue PMC vaguely based on the Last Man Battalion from The Division (story-wise) and one of the three PMCs in Africa from Metal Gear Solid 5 (I believe it was either Rogue Coyote or Zero Risk Security, although I never fuckin' wrote it down in my notes which one it was so fuck me I guess).**

 **The climax for the Vacuo campaign would have been Six and the Cult seizing all of the SDC Dust quarries and their related assets to finally establish Vacuo as a proper world power instead of just a clusterfuck, which the SDC (and Atlas) wouldn't have been too happy about, so they would send a massive army over to re-take said assets, which would promptly be shit on by the army of Securitrons, as well as the big artillery guns from the Left Field testing site, after which Atlas would have conceded defeat and submitted to Six/the Cult. Wouldn't earn him any points with the SDC, though.**

 **I never actually** _ **wrote**_ **anything for this portion of the second act, however, so that's why you're not seeing anything from it as a highlight. That's simply the general idea of what I was going to do.**

 **Now, we're moving to roughly around the same time as the segment above, back at a fucked up Beacon.**

* * *

 **Play Palpatine's Teachings from Revenge of the Sith**

* * *

Salem observed the datachip she held in her fingers. It was such a small, fickle little thing, yet its contents were truly magnificent, especially in the context of the world it had come from. In all practicality, it was simply a storage device, but both emotionally and symbolically, it represented so much more for Salem. Emotionally, it was the answer to a problem she had eons ago, and reminded her so much of who she once was. Symbolically, however, it was one of humanity's sources of hope and salvation. Barring the silver-eyed warriors, this was the only other thing humanity had made that could challenge her.

A creation that shared their resolve, their creativity, their willingness to fight, and even surpassing their own intelligence was a dangerous foe indeed. However, like all things, it could be broken, and turned against humanity.

Salem briefly smiled at the small, circular blue crystal at the center of the chip, electrical wiring running through it, softly letting out pulses, much like a beating heart. Calmly walking over to the console in the center of the office, Salem inserted the chip, and the holoprojector on top of the console lit up. The blue glow brightened, briefly threatening to blind Salem, before retreating to a much less unpleasant level of brightness.

Now, on top of the holoprojector, was the small, transparent figure of a woman. She had long, white hair, with a black bow on it just below her neck. Her eyes were bright blue, and she had a red beret on. For clothes, she wore a long, blue dress with what appeared to be ammunition pouches, and she had a knife strapped to her left leg. Currently, she was sulking in a fetal position.

"…My, my…" Salem said, pleased with her acquisition. "…I had imagined you would've been more… abstract, but I suppose that's my fault for not knowing what your kind look like." she continued, giving the hologram a knowing look.

The hologram looked up at her, and her eyes widened. "W-who the hell are you?! Where's Six?!" she said fearfully, backing up to the limit of where the holoprojector would let her move.

Salem smiled and closed her eyes, shaking her head. "You aren't the one asking questions here, _Allie_." she said, making sure to drop her name in a cold, malicious manner. "You may not know who I am, but I'm _intimately_ familiar with who you, and your master, are. You've all been a thorn in my side for a very, _very_ long time." Salem said, slowly circling around the console, keeping her sight on the hologram at all times. "Although, should your master show up, I suppose I could entertain you with the knowledge of who I am before I kill you both." she continued calmly, before stopping.

"…Assuming he does show up, of course." Salem said, her arms calmly crossed. "He could very well have deemed you as dead weight and abandoned you."

"Bullshit he did!" Allie protested angrily. "I know him better than anyone! He'd _never_ abandon me!"

Salem huffed. "Of course he wouldn't. Surely he couldn't have been hiding something from you." she said in a mocking tone, before turning her back to Allie, about to leave the ruined office. Salem paused, raising her left hand. In a slow, deliberate motion, she snapped her fingers, and instantly, pain coursed through Allie's body, causing her to shriek.

"…Pathetic." Salem remarked as she left the office, leaving Allie alone.

Slowly turning her head to the large window behind what used to be Ozpin's desk, Allie changed into her full-sized form, moving towards it. She was close enough to see her own reflection as she stared out at Vale. The entire city was on fire, lighting up the night sky. Explosions would intermittently happen all across the cityscape, and whenever they did, Allie's own reflection would light up briefly.

Pressing her hand against the glass, Allie closed her eyes. "…Wherever you are, Six…" she said quietly. "…save me."

* * *

 **That's that for this segment. The whole purpose of it was showing that Salem was torturing Allie because of some sort of past connection to Six. This was one of the changes I made to her backstory as a requirement for the whole "Remnant is Earth" thing to make sense given the fact that The Lost Fable came out almost at the exact same fucking time as Chapter 11. I was definitely gonna intentionally misdirect and give red herrings for who Salem's past identity was, mostly pointing it all at Veronica being Salem, only to pull the curtain back and reveal that I had japed everyone in the room. While I'm on the topic of what was changed with The Lost Fable, let's move to the topic of Ozma/Ozpin/Oscar. I was never actually super concrete on** _ **who**_ **Ozma would have been. I briefly entertained the idea of making him a reincarnation of Russell, since Russell would have some sort of tie to who Salem was, but that would've just been contrived as FUCK since it would raise questions like "Why didn't Ozpin reveal to Six that he was Russell?" and so on.**

 **Also, Salem and Allie would have had intermittent interactions that would've been a slowly progressing case of Break The Cutie. Just thought I'd point that out.**

 **Moving on, we're now moving to just after the Vacuo campaign which would have probably concluded around six or so months after the fall of Beacon, and they're now moving into Vale.**

* * *

Six sat in the command center of the FOB, observing the monitors that had feeds from scouting teams and several UAVs scavenged from Nellis on screen, with two members of the Custodia flanking him. Members of the Machina were also running around the command center tent, trying to process all the data about how the surrounding area of Vale had changed since the attacks.

Right now, they had the FOB set up just outside Moonvale. The fact that he had set the base up not too far away from when he first got to Remnant wasn't exactly lost on him. At the moment, though, he was waiting on all the reports to be compiled so he could make a proper assessment of the situation in Vale.

Yawning, Six stood up, and like a pair of obedient guard dogs, the Custodia stood up with him. They were Luh'doull, a veteran of the Militus who had been promoted to the station of a Custodia due to his religious fervor and combat ability, and Veila, the snake Faunus that had been assigned to him in Shade, who had been acting as body doubles for the more important people in the Cult. "The reports aren't gonna be done for a while." Six said, glancing at Veila. "Come, let's go for a walk."

"Yes, Arbiter." the Custodia said in unison, following Six outside the tent, past several Saturnite coated members of the Militus in T-51b, and several Securitron Mark IIIs. The guards instinctively saluted him as he walked past them and onto the dirt trail that led to the front gate of Moonvale. The walls looked like they had been fixed up a little bit. Had someone been squatting here after Vale and Beacon fell? It wouldn't surprise him, but the forward scouts hadn't said anything about squatters.

Pushing the gate open, Six waltzed in with the Custodia and looked around. The damage to the saloon and general store had definitely been fixed, and he was almost tempted to go inside to see if they had been restocked. It'd been a while since he had a good drink, but he decided against it. Instead, Six turned down the path to the homes on the left. Most of them still bore signs of a fire, but others seemed to have been repaired to an extent. Boarded up windows, shitty paintjobs and such were slowly growing more common the further back into Moonvale they went.

"This place… I feel cold." Veila commented quietly, rubbing her shoulder. "…Death." she said as she looked around at the houses. "…What happened here?"

"White Fang attack." Six replied. "Whole town was burned to the ground."

Six glanced back and mentally retraced the steps Julius would have taken to get out of the town when he did. Including the path to Aqui's house, that meant that Julius' house was right here on their left. Six stared at the vacant house, carefully examining the haphazard repairs that had been made to it. Stepping onto the front porch, Six just noticed that the birds had stopped singing, the insects had quieted down, and even the wind had stopped blowing. Through the faint creaks of the floorboard, he could hear someone crying.

…No, not crying.

Weeping.

Six put his hand on Sweet Revenge's holster, carefully stepping into the living room. The two Custodia followed him, drawing their weapons, a heavy pistol comparable to a .44 for Veila, and a combat rifle for Luh'doull. The two of them covered Six's flanks as he swept the house room by room. He gave what may have been Julius' room when he was a kid a once-over, before determining that nothing was there, and then checking the bathroom in the hall. Still nothing, but the weeping was getting closer. Approaching the end of the hall, Six looked into the room on the right and saw a figure huddled near a ruined bed.

Cautiously aiming Sweet Revenge at the figure alongside the two Custodia, Six spoke. "…Hello?" he said, and the figure stopped crying, instead turning its head up. Luh'doull shined his rifle's light on the figure. It was wearing the tattered remains of a plate carrier – most of the Kevlar had been stripped away, revealing only a shattered level III+ plate held in place by a few measly straps. The hair, if you could even call it that, was almost styled to look like dreads, but not exactly, and it had an almost olive green beret on. "Hey, if you need food, we've got some in our… base…" Six offered, before stumbling as Luh'doull lowered his light to the figure's arms. They certainly looked human, but the complexion was almost deathly pale, and whoever this was had a significant amount of body hair.

…Wait, not body hair. It was fur. Jet black fur, with an almost oily looking texture to it.

The figure slowly turned, and Six's jaw began to drop. The figure was wearing half-broken sunglasses, had visible scarring, and was only half-human on the right side of his face. The other side was roughly similar in shape and structure, but he had a stump of a wolf snout growing from his mouth, meshing with his human face like some sort of twisted experimented. "…N-Nax…?" the person weakly stammered out in a familiar voice, and then it clicked.

"…Julius?" Six hesitantly responded, keeping Sweet Revenge aimed at the figure.

The faintest hint of a smile crept across his face. "…So you do remember me, even if I look like… this." Julius replied, cautiously picking his words.

Six knelt down to get a closer look at Julius. "…Jesus, what happened to you?"

"…I fucked up." Julius said, pausing. "Hard."

"…How?"

Luh'doull interrupted whatever Julius' response was. "Arbiter, I have reason to suspect that… 'Julius' here is suffering from VGT; Viral Grimm Transformation." he explained. "He is only barely human."

"…Grimm Transformation?" Six asked.

Julius looked at him, as if to respond, before he hacked up several globs of black and red liquid. "…Y-you know how Grimm are attracted to negative emotions?" Julius asked, and before waiting for Six's response, continued. "If you do something so horrible, so monstrous, and so inhuman, your soul opens itself up for corruption. You _become_ one of them." Julius said, before fully turning to face Six, his mutated side now in full view, tears beginning to flow down both. "…How are the others?"

Six briefly lowered Sweet Revenge to the floor, looking forlorn towards Julius, although he wouldn't be able to tell that, on account of the helmet. "…All of them are gone, Julius. I'm… I'm sorry."

Julius didn't say anything, and instead reached into his pockets, pulling a small photograph out, which he slipped into Six's duster. "…Whenever you're done doing your job, Nax, I want you to look at that."

Without another word, Julius gently grabbed hold of Sweet Revenge's barrel, earning him several threats from the Custodia, but he pressed the gun barrel to his temple, stuck his thumb in the trigger guard, and pulled the trigger. The bullet went clean through his skull, exiting out the back and through the rotted wood wall. Julius sat there for a moment, before falling over, limp. "…Give him a proper burial in the backyard." Six commanded, and the Custodia nodded respectfully, carrying the body out of the house.

The walk back to the FOB was a somber one. The guards all saluted him in respect, and the Securitron faces acted as if they were standing at attention. He pushed the flap of the command tent aside, walking in and one of the Machina members immediately ran up to him, holding a Scroll. "Arbiter, one of the UAVs has sent us something we think you should see." he said, offering the device to Six.

Taking it and turning it over, Six clearly saw the outline of Beacon's main tower. There was a large Grimm that looked like a Dragon attached to the tower, much like a parasite. Six then swiped on the Scroll, and the image changed to a much closer view, near the top of the tower. Front and center was Allie, pressing her hands up against the glass, staring directly at the drone. "Prep the heavy artillery and the airborne groups in Vacuo." Six said, handing the Scroll back. "We're storming Vale and Beacon in three weeks."

The Machina bowed his head. "Yes, Arbiter." he curtly said, before returning to his duties.

" _I'm coming for you, Allie._ " Six thought.

* * *

 **So, that's that chapter. Now, we cut three weeks ahead to the invasion of Vale and Beacon, except not yet. At this point in the story, Six would have snuck into Beacon on his own and made his way up the tower to rescue Allie. I skipped most of that because, well, it would've been fucking boring watching Six sneak around for a few paragraphs.**

* * *

Pulling himself up over the open elevator doors, Nax kept Sweet Revenge drawn just in case something tried to surprise him. He pointed it at the left end of the hallway, and then on the right, before deciding the coast was clear. "You picking anything up?" Six asked quietly, keeping his head on a swivel.

"…Mmm…" Vex replied, before materializing in front of Six. "Picking up a lot of energy flowing in and out of that room there." she said, pointing towards the first room on the right.

"That's Ozpin's office. Shit." Six said, leaning up against the door and cautiously opening it, pointing Sweet Revenge through to clear it. There wasn't any other person in the office, except for Allie, ominously floating near some sort of pedestal, with translucent chains wrapping around her arms and legs.

* * *

 **Play Keep What You Steal from Halo 3**

* * *

"…Allie?" Six hesitantly said, entering the room and gaining her attention. Her formerly sullen face lit up with joy.

"Six!" she cried out in a hushed tone. "I almost thought you'd abandoned me, oh, my god!" she yelled, visibly relieved, although struggling with her bindings.

"…I'd never let someone steal you from me, Allie. Come hell or high water, I'll always come for you." Six calmly said. "Vex!" he called, and the AI appeared next to the pedestal.

"Already on it, chief." she said, smirking and pointing at the pedestal, before glancing at Allie. "…Hey, sis." she greeted, and in that same greeting, transferred a massive amount of data over to her 'sister', mostly her own personal thoughts on Six, and a recap on what had happened since Beacon fell. Vex then refocused her attention on Six. "…Hey, chief, doesn't this seem a little… easy?"

Six paused as he reached for Allie's slot on the pedestal. He didn't say anything, but something felt off. He turned his head back to the door to check if it was still clear, before yanking Allie's chip and inserting it into his helmet. "Let's get the fuck out of here." Six said, starting for the door.

Only to find himself with his nose practically against it. "What the hell?" Six said, surprised. He had just started for the door, how did he already get there? He didn't remember walking – there was no midpoint. Just a beginning and an end.

"The hell just happened?" Vex said from inside the helmet.

Allie, however, started to cry. "…No, she's here…" she said quietly.

Darting back behind Ozpin's desk for cover, Six raised the Survivalist's Rifle to the door. "Who is?" Six asked, his body beginning to feel like it was freezing over.

"It doesn't matter!" Allie shouted out. "You need to run, Six! You can't fight her!"

A new voice echoed throughout the office. "…I'm afraid that won't be happening, Allie." a ghostly, feminine voice said, her words seeming to linger. A cloud of dark smoke appeared near the doorway, and a deathly pale woman with ghostly white hair, red eyes, black tattoos, and a black dress walked through it.

Six raised the Survivalist's Rifle at the woman's head. "Who the hell are you? And what the hell do you want with Allie?"

The woman gave Six a sly smirk as she slowly walked towards him, ignoring the threat of the rifle pointed directly at her forehead. "I'm not surprised you don't recognize me, Courier Six. Then again, no-one's seen my face. Not even Marko or The Judge."

Without missing a beat, Six fired three shots from the rifle into the woman's head, but she seemed unaffected as she held her hand out. Six then clearly saw that the bullets were being held midair by some kind of blue aura. The woman then cast them aside, scattering the brass across the floor. "Is that all you have, Courier Six?"

"Who the hell are you?!" Six demanded angrily. "Answer me!"

The woman let out a light, malevolent laugh. "Oh, Six, I'm sure you can figure it out. Certainly someone as intelligent as you could figure out who I am. I mean, you've already seen my name on a letter on the body of a certain loose-end of an ambassador from the NCR. The one in charge of the events at Frosthill, to be exact."

…Oh, no.

It couldn't be.

"Khagan?!" Six shouted, raising the rifle and staring at the woman, who gave him a slow, sarcastic clap.

"Congratulations, Courier Six. You've figured out who I really am." Khagan taunted. "Now," she said in a significantly more menacing tone. "Die."

A translucent, black armored hand appeared from behind her and swiped at the air in front of her, leaving a black 'tear' that almost looked like the void of space. Six felt a rush of wind behind him, and then found himself face to face with Khagan. She smirked, and then disappeared, confusing Six, only to get another rush of wind in front of him, pulling him back to the desk. He then felt an ungodly strong force grip his throat and hold him up as Khagan appeared from the shadows.

"A shame that you're going to go down so easily. Perhaps had you met me before the incident, this would have been much fairer fight." she taunted, lifting Six higher into the air. "Goodbye, Courier Six."

The grip on his throat tightened and tightened, and then a gunshot rang out. The grip immediately dissipated, dropping Six to the floor. He glanced up, and saw Randall holding a smoking Sweet Revenge, and Khagan, clutching her stomach. "What?! How did you-?!" Khagan shouted in confusion, before glaring at Randall. "You. Even in death, you still cause problems for me." she said, her tattoos beginning to flare up.

Six got to his feet, and heard a faint rumbling. Khagan slowly approached the two of them, and there was a faint rumbling of engines in the distance, and it was significantly more intense directly below the office. Showtime.

Six pointed Sweet Revenge at the window, and without hesitation, fired a bullet through, shattering it into a million pieces. He backed up to the edge of the broken window, gave the dissipating Randall a salute, and fell backwards out of the window.

Right onto a waiting Bullhead.

The crew opened the top hatch, and one of them pulled Six through. "Arbiter, are you alright?" a concerned Machina asked him as the Bullhead pulled away from the tower.

Six gave him a nod. "Got the package. Now, let's watch the fireworks."

* * *

 **Play the Medal of Honor: Airborne theme**

* * *

The rumbling from overhead came closer and closer, and soon, the navigation lights of the seemingly never-ending horde of bombers and strike craft were visible. Their payloads were just barely visible against the night sky, but soon, the entire Beacon campus was lit up with massive explosions from the bombers. The strike-craft were next, with refurbished and repaired A-10s going for strafing runs against the dormant Grimm dragon, the reverberations of their Avenger cannons shuddering through the hull of the Bullhead. As expected, though, their fire had little effect on the massive beast. Not to worry, however, as the third barrage was incoming – massive waves of artillery, both shell-based and rocket, were visible over the horizon, and after several tense seconds, made contact with the Grimm dragon, their Saturnite penetrators making short work of the beast's limbs, causing it to lose whatever attachment it had to the tower and falling to the ground, shattering to chunks.

The wave of bombers passed over the campus, but that wasn't the only wave of planes – refurbished and even brand-new C-130s were incoming, and in bigger numbers. They had just begun to pass over the campus, but already, they were dropping their payloads – human and Faunus paratroopers, Mark III Securitrons, brand-new Bradleys, support equipment, everything.

Beacon would be under their control within a day, and Vale would quickly follow. Clearing out the Grimm infestation in both areas and repairing the infrastructure so they wouldn't be able to get back in, though, would take weeks, maybe even months.

* * *

 **That's that segment over and done with. We actually only have like 3 more segments, with the next one being the final fight with Khagan/Salem, the one after being a "what the hell do we do now" type thing, and the last one being an epilogue.**

 **For those who haven't completed the New Vegas Bounties series (especially 3), Khagan is the one running the show behind types like Marko, The Judge, and Sergio via the Syndicate. In other words, had Khagan not formed the Syndicate, Six likely would have never become a bounty hunter. In addition, even though we know so fucking little about Khagan, he's probably a dude, but for the sake of Grimm Retreat (and with a bit of inspiration from Diavolo), Khagan is a woman here.**

 **Now, for some context – Six has an absolute fuckton of assets available to him, owing thanks to the enlarged Madre machines I mentioned earlier. Said assets would have all been poured into reclaiming Vale, which would have then fallen under Cult/Vacuo control permanently.**

 **As for the hand behind Salem, that was a peak at her Semblance, except it's not really a Semblance, it's more of a corruption of one. For what it does (which is still kinda spoilers until the end fight), I looked at the powers of a** _ **lot**_ **of Jojo Stands, namely the main antagonists and the stands of a few JoBros. I also looked at some non-Stand users, namely the Pillar Men. I call it Master of the Universe, since it's heavily inspired by Jojo stands, and since I'm a cunt and want to keep the naming in line with the music references Araki loves so damn much, I named it after a lyric from the Dragonforce song "Judgement Day". As its name and the Stands that inspired it implies, it's a very fucking powerful Semblance, and the final battle doesn't really do it justice. Aesthetically, it bears resemblance to a mix of Crazy Diamond and The World, with a little bit of The Hand, Killer Queen, and Gold Experience for minor details, but with black and red colors.**

 **Anyways, final battle time. Since this is such a massive skip to the end of Act 3, I suppose I should explain what the literal fuck is going on. Sometime after the recapture of Vale, Six re-establishes contact with team RWBY and everyone else, and finds out about Jinn. At this point, Jinn would have revealed Salem's past to everyone (and also what Remnant really was, basically turning their worldview upside down, not to mention revealing that Six was lying to their faces). After some convincing, Six gets hold of the Relic of Knowledge and asks Jinn the remaining two questions; the first one being "How do I find Khagan/Salem?" and the second being "How do I defeat her?". The answer to the first one would basically have amounted to "collect the remaining two relics and then fuck off to the dragon-shaped continent near Vacuo", the name of said continent being Tenebrus. The answer to the second would have been "do some whacky bullshit with the katana, the relics, and your semblance".**

 **No, I didn't stutter when I said 'two relics'. The first relic they have is the Relic of Knowledge, obviously. The second, though, is the Platinum Chip. The fact that it's a relic is more symbolic than literal like Jinn. The Chip allowed Six to forge a massive army to defend New Vegas and create his own little slice of paradise in the wasteland, free from the tyranny of the Legion or the bureaucracy of the NCR. Now, this obviously is a fuckhuge plothole since Ozpin should have recognized the Chip when he handed it to Six at the end of initiation. The simple answer is that the Chip/Relic changes form regarding the status of its rightful owner, so in the interim between the Blowout and Six's arrival on Remnant, the Chip was in a different form, but once Six actually** _ **arrived**_ **, it sort of 'woke up' and landed in his hands.**

 **That's about enough exposition for this bit, so now, we're moving to the actual final battle.**

* * *

Six poked his head outside the door of the Blackhawk, eyeing the central valley of Tenebrus, where Jinn had directed him. The land was corrupted and broken – the ground occasionally tremored with terrible force, and the flora was colored a sickly purple. Permanent sets of storm clouds constantly orbited the valley in a never-ending spiral, purple and green lightning occasionally shooting out and scorching the ground.

He had all of his weapons on him – the Mauser, the Survivalist's Rifle, his Ithaca, Sweet Revenge, and most importantly, the Katana. The four relics were contained in a separate, secure bag. He sighed once, and then signaled for the pilot to begin landing.

Allie suddenly appeared next to him. " _You don't have to do this alone, Six. Ruby and the others want to help you._ "

Six continued looking down at the valley. "No, Allie. I have to." he said simply, before glancing at her. "This is my fight. Remnant's problems would never have happened if I had simply hunted down Khagan beforehand."

Allie looked out at the maelstrom continually forming over the valley, leaning her head against Six's shoulder. " _This is goodbye, isn't it?_ " she said quietly, afraid of Six's answer.

Six nodded his head once calmly. "Probably. If it is, then Allie, I want you to know you were the best damned partner I've ever had. It's been one helluva journey together, and I can't imagine having done it with anyone else."

Allie remained quiet, closing her eyes. "Twenty seconds!" the pilot signaled.

Six held his right hand over Allie's left. "But if it isn't, then I'll be back for you, Allie." he said, slowly removing her chip and handing it to the Custodia for protection, as her hologram slowly faded out. "I promise."

The helicopter was hovering just off the ground in the central valley, and Six jumped out, waving the helicopter away. The pilot gave a salute as he pulled away, flying back to Vacuo. He waited for the pilot to have flown far enough away, before turning to face the proper center of the valley. It was a large, circular 'arena' of sorts – four land bridges connected it to higher ground, dangling over a pit of a churning, purple liquid that would almost certainly kill him if he as much as touched it.

Kneeling down, Six opened the bag with the relics. All four of them were gently pulsing with energies of different colors, blue, green, red, and purple. He carefully grabbed each and every one of them, setting them out in a diamond pattern as Jinn instructed. He then grabbed each of his weapons barring the katana, and set them out between each of the relics, pointing the barrels at the relics to establish a sort of infinite 'flow' from one weapon and artifact to the next. He then activated his Semblance, and the spirits of all of his weapons came out. Steven Randall tipped his hat to Six, Randall Dean Clark gave him a salute, as did the German soldier possessing the Mauser, and the shadowy spirit of his own father gave Six a knowing nod.

"Follow our lead, kid." Randall said to him as he took the katana into his own hands and held it out towards the sky. Purple lightning struck the blade, giving it a dark purple aura. Randall then knelt down and pointing the katana at his chest, impaling himself on it. He showed no signs of pain as Clark removed the katana from his chest. They repeated the process – the color of the lightning changing each and every time, from green, to blue, to orange.

The shadow of Six's own father gave him the faintest hint of a smile as he pulled the blade from his own chest and offered it to Six. He carefully took the blade, and the apparition disappeared, leaving Six alone in this barren wasteland.

Unsure of what else to do, Six tentatively raised the blade to the sky, and lightning began forming in the clouds above him. Against his better judgement, he held the blade higher, and as if the sky itself were responding to Six's challenge, brilliant white-gold lightning struck the blade, temporarily blinding Six.

When Six could finally see again several seconds later, the sword had visibly changed. The Saturnite blade now was primarily colored gold, with a silver back-edge. The handguard now bore a small crossguard in similar colors to Sweet Revenge – black with gold trimming. The Kanji near the handguard also bore a new symbol - 魂 – between the Kanji for Shadow and Burn. If Six was remembering what Allie had told him about Kanji, this meant Soul, so the Kanji should now read as 'Shadow Souls Burn'. Overall, it felt significantly lighter, enough to swing with one hand if he so chose, and each practice swing he took with the reforged weapon left behind a slight 'ring' to it.

Satisfied, Six raised the blade outwards, pointing it at himself. Kneeling down, he briefly hesitated, before calming his breathing, Six closed his eyes and plunged the blade into his chest. He felt no pain as the blade ripped through his body, but Six, and the area around him, were consumed in a bright flash of light. When it disappeared, Six, his weapons, and the artifacts, were no longer in Remnant.

* * *

Six opened his eyes to find himself in some sort of throne room. Large windows stretched high up to the ceiling, revealing a bleak, desolate hellscape not unlike the one he had just come from. The floor was obviously made of marble, but artificially changed to be almost pitch black with purple hues.

Standing up, Six looked up towards the throne and saw Khagan waiting for him. "My, my," she said in a bored tone. "I'm surprised you actually showed up. Come to finish me off out of a selfish desire for revenge, Courier Six?"

"Maybe." Six sneered. "Or maybe I'm just here to put you down in the name of every man, woman and child that you've killed, both in the Old World and the New, Khagan."

Khagan laughed briefly. "…I don't think you realize that fighting me would be an exercise in futility, so I'm going to offer you a choice." she said, standing up from her throne. Two black armored hands appeared behind Khagan, one at her calves, and the other at her neck. They pointed their index fingers at each other, and a bolt of purple lightning shot out between them, linking the two hands. The bolt then expanded out into an oval shape, with an image slowly fading in. Six immediately recognized it as the Lucky 38's cocktail lounge, but it wasn't underground – it was open air. From the little of it that was available to see, Six could also catch glimpses of the Strip's casinos and their flashing lights. "You can either return to the Mojave the way you knew it, and leave Remnant forever, or you can die. Your choice – either serves my needs."

Cautiously, Six approached the portal, familiar sounds of the Strip's everyday activity hitting him at full blast, and he could even hear some familiar voices having an argument in the background. Sounded like… Arcade and Veronica? He reached his fingertips out, and electricity formed between the tips and the portal. He then paused, remembering something Allie had told him when they were still getting their bearings on Remnant.

Quickly changing his mind, Nax sliced Khagan with the katana. Her figure was bisected, but she simply gave a smug grin as her body faded away. "So be it, Courier Six."

With speeds that shouldn't have been physically possible, Khagan's mysteryguardian landed three strong punches on Six, one in the right leg, one in the stomach, and one in the head, all without laying a finger on him. Six's leg easily snapped like a twig, and his helmet and chest armor shattered into pieces, and he flew back to the bottom of the throne. "Fucker!" Six yelled, gritting his teeth through the pain as he examined his broken leg.

"Giving up already?" Khagan taunted, re-materializing in front of Six, slowly approaching him. "A shame."

Six forced himself to stand up straight, nearly falling back over. He steeled himself, and then lunged at Khagan with the katana, but she simply faded through the attack. "This isn't a fight you can win, Courier Six." Khagan said calmly, before using her guardian to land a kick to Six's spine, shattering it and paralyzing Six from the waist down, knocking him into the wall opposite the throne. Six struggled to get back up as Khagan continued to calmly approach him.

She stopped just short of his dying body, briefly chuckling to herself. "…And to think, you were one of my greatest threats, but now you're nothing but a weakling compared to the power I've obtained."

Six glanced up at Khagan, his face bloodied and bruised, with one foot in the grave. He sneered, and spat in her face. "Go to hell." Six said, nearly falling flat from being unable to support his own weight. Khagan simply rolled her eyes, and the ghostly hand appeared beside her, striking out at Six to finish the job. Mustering the remainder of his strength, Six swung the katana to meet the strike, and, miraculously, the blade stopped the punch dead. Khagan looked at the sight with a mixture of shock and horror, while Six simply grinned ear to ear, before letting his head fall and hit the ground, making a small ripple in the pool of blood that had formed.

Khagan cautiously stared at the body. Recalling Master of the Universe, she gently nudged the body. No response.

" _Better safe than sorry."_ Khagan thought as she raised her foot to stomp Six's head in. Dropping it down with as much force as she could put into it, she expected the satisfying sound of his brains splattering all over the floor. Instead, though, her foot stopped short, hitting a material that sounded more like hard plastic than flesh and bone. Her foot was obviously floating above Six's head, so she tried stomping again, and again, and again, and each time, her foot refused to connect.

"Having trouble there?" a familiar, ethereal voice said to her. She looked up from Six's body, and saw the two ghostly figures of the Brother-Gods hovering above him, grinning ear to ear. The God of Darkness then revealed the ruse – Six had been protected by an invisible barrier. "You don't win. Not this time, Salem." the God of Light said disdainfully, before linking hands with his brother, and then touching Six on his back. Outlines of light and shadow enveloped the three of them, flowing into Six.

"Master!" Khagan called out, and Master of the Universe came out from behind her, already slinging an impossibly fast flurry of punches at the Gods, to ill-effect. Each and every punch seemed to get deflected back to Master, and therefore, Salem, knocking her back a few meters. The grins on the Gods' faces only widened, as the outlines intensified, and Six began to glow brighter and brighter, culminating in a bright flash that blinded Salem. Using Master to overwrite her temporary blindness and react quicker, she saw Six already getting up off the ground, completely healed with his eye shut.

"…Did you really think this would be that easy, Khagan?" Six said, his tone ethereal, sounding as if a hundred clones of him were speaking in perfect unison.

Salem simply scowled at Six. "Master!" she called out, and on command, Master of the Universe charged at Six, readying the strongest punch it had.

Only for Six to simply redirect the punch into the wall and stab Master in the chest, causing black blood to spurt out from Khagan's chest. "Master, stop time!" Khagan shouted, and a bluish-purple aura flew out from Master of the Universe. Six was frozen in time for now, but Khagan didn't have a chance to dawdle around. "Smash him to pieces, Master!" Khagan ordered, and Master nodded, unleashing a flurry of punches too fast for even Khagan to keep up with, before pulling back and charging the strongest punch it had. Lunging forward, Master was about to finish Six off, when suddenly, something ethereal came from Six's chest and stopped Master's final punch dead in its tracks.

Slowly, the entity emerged. It was obviously human, and as it emerged, it pushed Master away from Six, before landing a punch clean on its face that knocked Salem to the floor. Reacting quickly, she got back to her feet, and by the time she did, the figure had fully emerged from Six's frozen body. It was tall – at least 6'5", and far more muscular than Six. It had long, flowing blonde hair that was at least waist length, and its eyes glowed a brilliant white-gold. For clothes, it wore a simple loincloth, studded fingerless gloves, gold pauldrons with silver accents, and a silver headband with a copy of the Platinum Chip where a gem would probably be stored. It was the only thing aside from herself and Master that could move under the effects of Time Stop. It then reached behind itself and touched Six, glowing around his left shoulder, and Six began to move again.

"…You have no power here, Khagan." Six said, sounding more annoyed than anything. "It's time to meet the fate that you so rightly deserve." he finished, opening his eye to reveal that it was glowing the same brilliant white-gold as the mystery entity.

* * *

 **Play this starting at 3:00: /watch?v=qrw3NYx2YQ0**

* * *

Six began to approach Khagan, the entity's movements mimicking his own. "Master!" Khagan called out, and it attempted to strike again. Quickly choosing between Six or the entity, it chose the entity to attack first, unleashing another flurry of punches. The entity, however, calmly blocked each and every attack with its palms, before kneeing Master in the gut and landing one clean punch on its face, shattering its helmet into pieces that quickly disappeared.

Master got back up, its almost alien face now fully revealed. It raised its right hand up, and the black void formed around it, before it swiped at the air in front of it, bringing itself closer to Six and the entity. The pair were briefly caught off guard, but the entity was faster on its feat, grabbing Master by the right arm and twisting it into an unusable position, before releasing it, only to switch the now free hand to Master's throat, easily holding it in position. The entity then began to pummel and pound and smash into Master, until its head was nothing but a cracked shell bleeding black and dark purple blood.

The entity then let go of Master, and both it and Six focused their attention on Salem, who was visibly unnerved by the sight of the entity smashing Master to pieces. She rose her hand behind her and closed it into a fist, and the back of the throne room started to crumble, exposing them all to the abyssal hellscape outside. Wings then sprouted from Khagan's back, and she turned to flee.

"You can't escape me, Khagan!" Six shouted, kicking off the ground and launching himself after Khagan, the entity effortlessly mimicking his movements and having no trouble keeping pace with him, even as he was effectively flying through the air. Grabbing on to Khagan's back, Six punched and kicked her with such force that she was having trouble keeping course. The entity sped ahead of them and punched Khagan in the gut, sending her spiraling into the ground. Six managed to get himself into a position where he could kick himself up into the air off of Khagan, and did exactly that, launching himself into the waiting arms of the entity, who then spun around in the air to build enough momentum, before finally releasing Six directly above Khagan, like a cruise missile.

The impact kicked up a lot of dust in the vicinity – Six, however, despite the speed at which he hit Khagan, was completely unscathed. The same could not be said for Khagan, who was trying to crawl away from him. Six simply stomped on her back, immobilizing her, while the entity came back to the ground. Six gestured to Khagan with his head, and the entity simply smirked, before unleashing the fastest flurry of punches and kicks onto Khagan that Six had ever seen.

The entity then grabbed Khagan by the legs and began to spin around, building up momentum, before throwing her high up into the air. Six simply held the katana out as Khagan fell back to the ground, impaling herself on the blade. She scrambled to strangle Six, but he effortlessly broke her arms with two punches. Khagan's eyes were filled with a burning hatred – a hatred that Six hadn't seen in anyone before. "Bastard!" Khagan shouted, struggling against the blade as her skin began to sizzle and cook.

Six shook his head, merely annoyed with Khagan's resistance. "Burn! Die!" Khagan continued to yell, flailing on the blade. Six simply sighed at how long this was taking, and forcibly kicked Khagan off the blade and onto her feet.

…only to immediately decapitate her.

Her head flew off a short distance, and her body crumpled, before bursting into flame and turning to dust. Khagan's head shortly followed, and her ashes scattered to the winds of whatever plane of existence he was on.

Immediately, Six felt lightheaded, before collapsing.

* * *

 **That's the final fight with Salem/Khagan in regards to what I have written down in my notes. Like I said, the fight doesn't do Master of the Universe or Khagan/Salem proper justice. Had I decided to continue writing Grimm Retreat, this fight probably would have been a lot beefier.**

 **Skipping ahead to the ending and the epilogue now.**

* * *

 **Play the Midnight version of Never Forget from Halo 4**

* * *

Six woke up to find himself in his bed in the Lucky 38's Presidential Suite. He pulled the sleeves on his duster back and found that he had numerous scars and healed bruises, all along his arms. Peaking down his shirt, he also saw that his torso was heavily scarred. He was briefly confused, and then he remembered the fight with Khagan, and he had passed out.

" _Six! Oh, my god!"_ a familiar voice said to him, and Allie materialized on the bed, hugging him as tight as she could for a hologram. _"I thought you'd died!"_

Six 'hugged' her back as best he could. "I don't intend on dying on you, Allie." he said calmly as Allie began to quietly cry.

Their reunion was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the Brother Gods at his bedside. "Greetings, Courier Six." the God of Light said to him, his voice sounding much more polite and calm than before.

"Hello, Six." the God of Darkness greeted informally.

The two of them looked slightly different – the God of Light had a white-gold glow to him now, and had what seemed to be antlers on top of his head, while the God of Darkness had what looked like the horns of a ram protruding from his head. "…Do you still need something from me?" Six tentatively asked as Allie let go of him, falling next to him in bed.

"No." the God of Light said. "We're actually here to do something for you. As payment for finally ending Salem's threat, and effectively uniting humanity, we would like to offer you a gift of our power. The two of us will give you two wishes each. We don't expect you to have anything in mind right now, but if you do, please name your wish."

Six nodded once in understanding. "I have two wishes, actually."

"Name them." the God of Light advised, waiting for Six's input.

Six briefly entertained the idea of resurrecting team JAMI, but eventually decided against it. Bringing back the dead just seemed… wrong to him, somehow. "…The first one; I want you to restore my limbs and my left eye to before they were dismembered and shot out."

"And the second?" the God of Darkness asked.

"Make Allie human."

Allie shot up from her resting position next to Six. _"What?! You're going to use a wish on me?!"_ Allie said, shocked.

Six glanced back at her. "Of course, Allie. When I make a promise, I keep it." he said, before turning to the Gods.

"Consider it done." they said in unison, snapping their fingers and causing a bright light to spring out from them. Six was temporarily blinded by this, but when it cleared after he rubbed his eye enough, he felt… whole again. He could feel the leather of his gloves against his hands, and, believing he had been hallucinating it, pulled them off.

Only to find his natural, human hands under them, instead of the mechanical ones he had installed after Frosthill. Realizing what had just happened, he pulled his eyepatch off, finding himself able to see from his left eye again, for the first time in years. "…I… I can see out of my left eye again." Six stammered, touching his left eye. Everything had been restored to its original state.

He then glanced over to see Allie staring at him.

She wasn't transparent.

"…Allie?" Six said quietly as Allie reached out to touch him. Her hand actually connected with him, and Allie yipped back in fear. "…Allie, you're… you're real?" he said, sounding confused, even though this was his wish.

She tried to gently reach out again, touching Six's face. "…You're so warm, Six. Is this what being human feels like?"

Six held Allie's hand against his face. "…Feels great, doesn't it?" Six said. Allie smiled and nodded once, before slapping Six across the face. "Ow! What was that for?!" he yelped.

"That's for all the times you nearly got us killed." Allie said, before leaping onto Six, kissing him. They stayed like that for a short while, and then Allie pulled back. "…And that's for keeping your promise to me, Six."

Pulling her into the strongest hug he could reasonably give her, Six felt tears begin to run down his cheek – both his own, and Allie's. "…Thank you so much, Six." Allie said, quietly overjoyed at her new life. Six tightened his grip on her – now that he could physically feel Allie in his arms, he never, ever wanted to let go of her. She was too precious for that.

Six shut his eyes as he pulled Allie in closer, finally feeling like he was at peace with himself for the first time in his life.

* * *

 **FIVE YEARS AFTER KHAGAN'S DEATH**

* * *

Standing on the new balcony of the Lucky 38's penthouse, Nax watched the sun set in the distance. If you'd never known what Vacuo was like, you'd have always assumed it looked this way – what with its rolling grassy plains and lush forests. The terraforming project with the recovered equipment from Big Mountain had gone beautifully. What once was a harsh, hellish desert wasteland was now as habitable as any other part of the world. There were no Grimm to harass Vegas – they had all been exterminated after an extensive campaign. The CCT System had all been moved up into orbit, too, ensuring that what happened at Beacon could never happen again.

Vegas itself had been unearthed and revealed to the surface for the first time in thousands of years using experimental technology from Big Mountain. For the first time in human history, both in the Old Worlds, and in the New, humanity was at peace.

Nax felt a cool breeze run across his face, and he pulled out the photo Julius had handed to him years ago. It was a picture of team JAMI and himself, posing with their gear after a mission. All of them were smiling, living the carefree lives that they had led. All of them except for himself, standing stoically in the background. He sighed, and felt a pair of hands wrap themselves around his stomach. Nax turned, and saw Allie behind him, quietly hugging him. She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes seeming like they were shimmering in the evening lighting, and she smiled warmly.

Nax smiled back, and pulled her closer to the railing, minding her pregnant belly. He held her close to him. Some might call it being overprotective, but Nax had seen enough horrors in this world – he didn't want his wife to become one of them.

"Mooommy!" a young girl called from inside the Penthouse. The source of the voice ran outside – she was a young girl, around five years old, with short, white hair, with a braid wrapping around the back of her head, and she had a little pink bow in her hair. She was wearing nothing more than her pajamas.

"Yes, Aqui? Is something wrong?" Allie asked, taking on her maternal tone of voice.

Aqui pointed back inside the penthouse. "Julius is sleeping on my bed again, and he won't move!" she cried, little tears forming around her steely grey eyes. "He's so mean!"

Nax and Allie exchanged a look as the latter went over to comfort their daughter. "It's just how he is, honey." she said, petting her head before picking her up. "Your father and I will have to talk to him, won't we?" she said, turning back to look at Nax, who gave her a nod in response. All three of them headed back inside for the night.

* * *

 **End.**

* * *

 **I'd advise you to throw on "Here's to you, Nicola and Bart" while you read this big fuck off wall of text.**

 **That's the end of Grimm Retreat as I have it written down in my notes. Those are literally all of the key moments I had planned, which, retrospectively, probably would have meant there was a gonna be a lot of filler. Now, I'd like to take a moment to address some potential questions you may have regarding the story.**

 **Q. Where was Team RWBY/RNJR/fucking whoever during the planned second act?**

 **A. Assume they're mostly continuing with the main RWBY storyline – I never actually wrote any material down for what would happen with the canon characters, as I had planned to drop the baggage of the official story and write my own thing.**

 **Q. I seem to remember the Brother Gods mentioning something about Six's fate being tied with Ruby's. Whatever happened to that?**

 **A. I pulled an Araki and forgot about that plotline. Or I was talking out of my ass and trying to seem deep. I forget, but since it was before I had decided to stop following the official storyline, I assume I had something planned for it.**

 **Q. What happened to the Think Tank?**

 **A. That's an open-ended question that I'm intentionally leaving that way. They could be alive, or they could all be dead. I originally planned a scene with them for the second act where Six and the cult would get into Big Mountain to fix shit, and they'd encounter the Think Tank who were a big metallic cube of murderdeathfuck that had all been driven insane. The answer to this also ties into something further below, which is actually one of the most important parts of** _ **why**_ **I'm updating.**

 **Q. Did you have any alternate scenes planned?**

 **A. Yes, several of them actually. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but Julius was originally supposed to suddenly feel weak after killing Roman, and then get pushed off of the Battlecruiser by a fucking gust of wind. I cut this because that is anticlimactic as FUCK. There was also supposed to be an ending where Six, after teaming up with Atlas to fight off Khagan/Salem, would've been double-crossed by Ironwood and shot to death, set to the tune of the same song you should be listening to right now. This ending never materialized because Six had suffered enough, and I wanted him to have a happy ending after all the shit he went through. I'd probably never forgive myself if I fucked him over at the end.**

 **Q. How long did it take to make this?**

 **A. The document was originally created on December 30, 2018, which was when it was just Chapter 13 and not the end of Grimm Retreat. As you all surely remember, I quickly cancelled this after posting Pulsar Company since I have the attention span of a fucking goldfish, and also because I'm not a fan of RWBY anymore. The document stayed untouched until around August, when I finally got my ass in gear and began writing this nearly 30k word document down.**

 **If you have any other questions you may want to ask me regarding Grimm Retreat, my inbox is always open for messages. I'll happily answer any questions you may have regarding the story.**

 **Now, on to the most important part of this entire spiel – I'm authorizing anyone who wants to write something within Grimm Retreat's continuity to be able to do so freely. If you want to take up the torch and fully write out the entire story of Grimm Retreat using what I've said and these highlights, you've got my blessing to do so. **

**If you saw something that really pissed you off and you wanted changed, you can totally write that out and change it, no need to ask me for permission.**

 **If you want to insert your own characters into the story, go nuts.**

 **Grimm Retreat represents a significant portion of how I've grown as a fanfic writer. From the godawful original version that I've cast into the void, to the vastly improved rewrite, and even now, it's a big influence on how I perceive writing stories. I truly, honestly never expected Grimm Retreat to get to where it was, and this is my way of giving back to the community.**

 **I just have one request from anyone who actually takes me up on this – write your stories under the label Grimm Retreat Project. Hell, if someone could make a community and categorize these stories under it, that would probably be even better.**

 **Anyways, that's all I have for, well, shit, everything. If you're interested in what I'm writing now, that would be The Rise of Pulsar Company, a Star Wars fanfic that tells its own story separate from the movies.**

 **Thank you all for everything. I genuinely appreciate it.**

 **-Tweak**


End file.
